Re: OOps
Roland Hughes via Foxgui-users <[email protected]> Fri, 26 Dec 2025 05:12:15 -0600
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.lib.fox-toolkit.user |
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| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============6466520011321000497== Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------CakVc7A0mLMPi7Ndpr9wk0Q0" Content-Language: en-US This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------CakVc7A0mLMPi7Ndpr9wk0Q0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit While I'm working on a different toolkit, I still subscribe here. Jeroen does still seem to be on the sunny side of the daisies. 😁 He posts updates here http://fox-toolkit.org/ Clicking on the Forum and Blog menu entries gives invalid security certificate errors though. The Eiffel port, like the Eiffel language, appears to be dead dead dead dead dead dead, last updated in 2003. The FXPy port seems to have died around the same time. FXRuby has been dead long enough now that when you click on the link it goes to the NameCheap hosting site. Now that I'm extremely long in the tooth, no longer needing glasses to see the end of the actuarial tables, I'm rather stunned. I started out before we really had PCs, working on big stuff. DOS must have had a thousand C library vendors by the time the 386SX came out. We also had OS/2, Xenix, and half a dozen other operating systems that basically don't exist. Okay, there is one company still pushing OS/2. https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/os2-back-from-the-grave/ God only knows how many ShareWare GUI/TUI libraries disappeared with the demise of global bulletin board systems. Okay, they aren't /completely/ gone. https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/connection/dial-up/list/detail/ But who has a land line anymore? I've actually read some articles stating certain companies have went back to using BBS for secured communications for just that reason. First you have to find a landline. Second, you have to find a compatible modem. If they are running Courier HST . . .weeeelll Then you can try guessing usernames and passwords while paying a long distance bill. When one clicks on the installation menu item, many/most of the supported compilers and operating systems aren't around anymore. Fox outlived them all. Well, Open-Watcom keeps coming back, sortof. https://github.com/open-watcom Sad really. I remember when Watcom was the best of the best. Used it for a lot of software back then. Everyone reading this should take a moment to sit back and think about all of the libraries and operating systems that have come and gone. There was a time when Borland was going toe-to-toe with Microsoft and beating Microsoft in the C/C++/Pascal compiler and library game. A publicly traded software titan that is yet another entry in DVorak's "Whatever Happened To" series. Then, here is Jeroen and FOX, still plugging along. Yeah, from time to time people pop onto this list wanting it to be a community driven Open-Source project instead of a one man show, but, an elephant is a mouse designed by committee. It's rather stunning that one dude could be stubborn enough to keep something like this going from 1997 until now. From time to time someone pops onto the list stating they developed N applications for their current employer using this toolkit. I don't think I've seen anything announced as a retail/commercial product using this, but, just how many applications are out there, in production, using this? We cannot know because most of the developers don't join this list and given the life of this library now spans decades plural, some of them may not even be alive anymore. At some point Jeroen will have to pass the torch, probably when they nail the coffin shut 😇. What I noted during the last brew-ha-ha about making this "community driven" was nobody had patches they wanted to submit. Nobody volunteered to take up the burden of development and testing. Lots of people wanted to steer the ship though. Having many libraries and Open-Source projects of my "own" (even if they are forks, once you make changes they are yours) I can understand the immense burden of making such a library. I mean one 4+ year journey went from CopperSpice through https://github.com/RolandHughes/ls-cs https://sourceforge.net/projects/lscsscintilla/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/reddiamond/ Now I'm working on ls-cs again, just to get a windows package so I can then make a windows package for lscsscintilla so I can finally have RedDiamond on Windows. I don't normally use Windows so it was never a priority. Recently, I started the BasisDoctrina project https://sourceforge.net/projects/basisdoctrina/ to build the library I've needed for every embedded systems project I've ever worked on. Since I came up through computer operations back when we had system consoles and 2400 ft magnetic reel tapes, I focus on the plumbing first. I need to get the Windows plumbing done now and all Windows editors suck. None of them have EDT keypad navigation. Due to longstanding animosity between Linux and the OpenVMS world, Emacs EDT does not let you map NumLock for the GOLD key. Yes, it was a deliberate thumb in the eye because they wanted everyone to use Vi. Plumbing is where most library/toolkits fail. I don't know who actually creates the Debian package for Fox https://packages.debian.org/stable/libdevel/libfox-1.6-dev but putting one of those together from scratch the first time is a lot of work. All of the GUI tools for that are here today and gone tomorrow. RPM packaging is a different can of worms https://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=fox Your library has to be rather beloved for someone to go to the pain of packaging it for a distro. Even more loved to be in the official repos. That's a hurdle most "free as in beer" projects never clear. Thanks for listening to a post-holiday rant! On 12/25/2025 7:43 PM, Steve Adam wrote: > I checked the archive and I see that Fox is still used and supported... > > Cool :) > > Steve > > > > _______________________________________________ > Foxgui-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/foxgui-users -- Roland Hughes, President Logikal Solutions (630)-205-1593 (cell) https://theminimumyouneedtoknow.com https://infiniteexposure.net https://johnsmith-book.com --------------CakVc7A0mLMPi7Ndpr9wk0Q0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> </head> <body> <p>While I'm working on a different toolkit, I still subscribe here. Jeroen does still seem to be on the sunny side of the daisies. 😁</p> <p>He posts updates here</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fox-toolkit.org/">http://fox-toolkit.org/</a></p> <p>Clicking on the Forum and Blog menu entries gives invalid security certificate errors though.</p> <p>The Eiffel port, like the Eiffel language, appears to be dead dead dead dead dead dead, last updated in 2003. The FXPy port seems to have died around the same time.</p> <p>FXRuby has been dead long enough now that when you click on the link it goes to the NameCheap hosting site.</p> <p>Now that I'm extremely long in the tooth, no longer needing glasses to see the end of the actuarial tables, I'm rather stunned.</p> <p>I started out before we really had PCs, working on big stuff. DOS must have had a thousand C library vendors by the time the 386SX came out. We also had OS/2, Xenix, and half a dozen other operating systems that basically don't exist. Okay, there is one company still pushing OS/2.</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/os2-back-from-the-grave/">https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/os2-back-from-the-grave/</a></p> <p>God only knows how many ShareWare GUI/TUI libraries disappeared with the demise of global bulletin board systems. Okay, they aren't <i>completely</i> gone.</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/connection/dial-up/list/detail/">https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/connection/dial-up/list/detail/</a></p> <p>But who has a land line anymore? I've actually read some articles stating certain companies have went back to using BBS for secured communications for just that reason. First you have to find a landline. Second, you have to find a compatible modem. If they are running Courier HST . . .weeeelll Then you can try guessing usernames and passwords while paying a long distance bill.</p> <p>When one clicks on the installation menu item, many/most of the supported compilers and operating systems aren't around anymore. Fox outlived them all. Well, Open-Watcom keeps coming back, sortof.</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/open-watcom">https://github.com/open-watcom</a></p> <p>Sad really. I remember when Watcom was the best of the best. Used it for a lot of software back then.</p> <p>Everyone reading this should take a moment to sit back and think about all of the libraries and operating systems that have come and gone. There was a time when Borland was going toe-to-toe with Microsoft and beating Microsoft in the C/C++/Pascal compiler and library game. A publicly traded software titan that is yet another entry in DVorak's "Whatever Happened To" series.</p> <p>Then, here is Jeroen and FOX, still plugging along.</p> <p>Yeah, from time to time people pop onto this list wanting it to be a community driven Open-Source project instead of a one man show, but, an elephant is a mouse designed by committee. <br> </p> <p>It's rather stunning that one dude could be stubborn enough to keep something like this going from 1997 until now. From time to time someone pops onto the list stating they developed N applications for their current employer using this toolkit. I don't think I've seen anything announced as a retail/commercial product using this, but, just how many applications are out there, in production, using this? We cannot know because most of the developers don't join this list and given the life of this library now spans decades plural, some of them may not even be alive anymore.</p> <p>At some point Jeroen will have to pass the torch, probably when they nail the coffin shut 😇. What I noted during the last brew-ha-ha about making this "community driven" was nobody had patches they wanted to submit. Nobody volunteered to take up the burden of development and testing. Lots of people wanted to steer the ship though. Having many libraries and Open-Source projects of my "own" (even if they are forks, once you make changes they are yours) I can understand the immense burden of making such a library. I mean one 4+ year journey went from CopperSpice through<br> </p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/RolandHughes/ls-cs">https://github.com/RolandHughes/ls-cs</a><br> </p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lscsscintilla/">https://sourceforge.net/projects/lscsscintilla/</a></p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/reddiamond/">https://sourceforge.net/projects/reddiamond/</a></p> <p>Now I'm working on ls-cs again, just to get a windows package so I can then make a windows package for lscsscintilla so I can finally have RedDiamond on Windows. I don't normally use Windows so it was never a priority. Recently, I started the BasisDoctrina project <br> </p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/basisdoctrina/">https://sourceforge.net/projects/basisdoctrina/</a></p> <p>to build the library I've needed for every embedded systems project I've ever worked on. Since I came up through computer operations back when we had system consoles and 2400 ft magnetic reel tapes, I focus on the plumbing first. I need to get the Windows plumbing done now and all Windows editors suck. None of them have EDT keypad navigation. Due to longstanding animosity between Linux and the OpenVMS world, Emacs EDT does not let you map NumLock for the GOLD key. Yes, it was a deliberate thumb in the eye because they wanted everyone to use Vi.</p> <p>Plumbing is where most library/toolkits fail.</p> <p>I don't know who actually creates the Debian package for Fox</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/libdevel/libfox-1.6-dev">https://packages.debian.org/stable/libdevel/libfox-1.6-dev</a></p> <p>but putting one of those together from scratch the first time is a lot of work. All of the GUI tools for that are here today and gone tomorrow.</p> <p>RPM packaging is a different can of worms</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=fox">https://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=fox</a></p> <p>Your library has to be rather beloved for someone to go to the pain of packaging it for a distro. Even more loved to be in the official repos.</p> <p>That's a hurdle most "free as in beer" projects never clear.</p> <p>Thanks for listening to a post-holiday rant!</p> <p><br> </p> <p><br> </p> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/25/2025 7:43 PM, Steve Adam wrote:<br> </div> <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAMuvhBgfg8WsNjOZWR87Yyw07dOKQLpPmcWDhteJwEcitXjPFw@mail.gmail.com"> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <div dir="ltr">I checked the archive and I see that Fox is still used and supported... <div><br> </div> <div>Cool :)</div> <div><br> </div> <div>Steve</div> <div><br> </div> </div> <br> <fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset> <br> <fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset> <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________ Foxgui-users mailing list <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/foxgui-users">https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/foxgui-users</a> </pre> </blockquote> <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- Roland Hughes, President Logikal Solutions (630)-205-1593 (cell) <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theminimumyouneedtoknow.com">https://theminimumyouneedtoknow.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://infiniteexposure.net">https://infiniteexposure.net</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://johnsmith-book.com">https://johnsmith-book.com</a></pre> </body> </html> --------------CakVc7A0mLMPi7Ndpr9wk0Q0-- --===============6466520011321000497== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline --===============6466520011321000497== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline _______________________________________________ Foxgui-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/foxgui-users --===============6466520011321000497==--