!Re: Nuke Redmond!

From: healyzh_at_aracnet.com <(healyzh_at_aracnet.com)>
Date: Thu Apr 6 21:06:59 2000

> How much did their purchase of Spyglass [the company and the
> product same name(?)] affect the look and feel of Explorer? Did they

Didn't realize that they had.

> > MS Visual BASIC:
> > Now this one has bothered me for several years, did they buy the underlying
> > technology or copy something that already existed. I've a strange feeling
> > that this one was actual innovation!
> >
>
> I haven't had the urge to look at VB. How visual and how object oriented
> is it? I believe Serius Developer for Mac precedes it. Serius was sold by
> its founder to Novell who renamed it Appware and seemed to carry it to
> version 1.2. Was this Novell's effort at competing with VB? It became a
> dual platform (Win and Mac) development environment, a connect the module
> (ALMs - Appware Load Modules) IDE. I believe the modules were written in
> another language, probably C. I think just before its swan dive in
> 1994(?) they renamed it AppBuilder, but whether that was just cosmetics
> or real changes I don't know. Using their search engine, I find
> that Novell has managed to expunge virtually all mention of either
> product from its web site. Technically this is on topic as the start date
> for Serius has to be over ten years ago or at least close.

I spent some serious time learning it when it first came out in late '91.
Even V1.0 was a *very* cool product, however, it didn't run on OS/2 as
advertised so I couldn't use it much till OS/2 2.0 came out (which could run
Windows Apps). I've not touched it since '95 when I got my first Mac.

You basically draw the interface, and then write code for what happens when
you do something such as click on a button. There is finally the equivalent
for the Mac, but I've not gotten a copy. What I'd *really* love is a nice
cross platform version that would run on Mac, Windows, and Linux at least.

It's a fantastic tool for writing little apps, however, I find the thought
of people making $100+ an hour writing VB apps crazy. Worse is when major
apps are written in it.

> Similarly, what happened to Layout? I assume it also doesn't exist
> anymore.
>
> I wonder if there were any last patches, updates or extra code
> (modules) for both products, material that is now forever lost?
>
> Anybody have either of these two products in any of their various
> incarnations?

I don't believe I've actually ever heard of either of them.

                        Zane
Received on Thu Apr 06 2000 - 21:06:59 BST