sw-l-digest V1 #2457

[GerardM]

Hoi,
Writing exclusively for Windows and certainly for use on the Internet is
foolish. The numbers indicate that in many countries there is more than 30%
of the people not using Internet Explorer any more. On OmegaWiki the group
of Firefox users is larger than the group of IE users.

>From a marketing point of view you effectively ignore a large part of your
user base. Personally a website that does not work with Firefox is a website
I ignore as being irrelevant.

Thanks,
     Gerard




>
> Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:18:45 -0500
> From: Stuart Thiessen <sw at passitonservices.org>
> Subject: Re: [sw-l] SWML
>
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> Hi! Actually, there are other alternatives to a web-based approach.
> You can use programming languages such as Perl, Python, or Java to
> create programs that can run on multiple platforms and that do not
> require the web. For example, their is an excellent opensource sign
> language research tool called ELAN which allows researchers to
> analyze video clips of sign languages and make various annotations of
> the video clips for their research. It is written in Java and is
> available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Certainly, there are pros and
> cons and give and take that happens when you program so that it works
> on multiple platforms. But Web-based programming as the only cross-
> platform programming approach is a common misconception. It is
> certainly one of the options which is what Steve picked for his
> approach. I'm sure whatever you create will work well on Windows, but
> it will be useless to those of us not on that platform. WIth such a
> diverse group that we are, I personally tend to encourage programming
> approaches that focus on being available on multiple platforms so
> that everyone can benefit without having to purchase another computer
> just to benefit from a program. I just think that's a wiser use of
> resources and it doesn't take any extra effort other than learning a
> programming language that can actually work on multiple platforms.
> All of the languages I have mentioned are free, so it will cost
> nothing to install their IDE's and work with them.
>
> If you decide to stick with VB, I suggest you explore Mono. That is
> an open source way to run .NET programs. That might be one way to
> make it available for other platforms. But I have never done that
> myself, so I am not sure how that works.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stuart
>
> On 25 Jun 2007, at 22:15, Jonathan wrote:
>
> > Hi Stuart,
> >     My current plans for my program are Windows only.  But if there
> > is a way down the road to run it or port it to Linux or even
> > Macintosh, then I might look into it.  The only way to make work
> > well on every platform is for it to be on the web like SignPuddle.
> > But SignPuddle already exists and if my program was web based, many
> > people who don't have access or can't be connected very long
> > couldn't make very much use of it.  There are advantages and
> > disadvantages to each programming style.
> >
> > Jonathan
>
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