Arrgh. Cross compilation. Never an easy task. Well, it is not that bad except for Windows. Everything compiled the underlying Raydo library and almost every platform compiled the GUI. The only holdout was Solaris 10.

    I was a little negative in my last review of Solaris 10. I do like Solaris, I just think they do not have their stuff together. Solaris has always been geeky, and that influence shows. Sun is trying to make Solaris much more user friendly, but they are letting the geeks do it. Sure, they have the designers and such on the team, but the GUI does not feel ‘finished’. Oh, and they still include CDE ! Crazy stuff.

    The GUI on Solaris was a no go because wxWidgets would not compile out of the box. I have not spent that much time on it, but the underlying Raydo Lib does work, which means Solaris can work as a server for the system. When I get some time, I will go back and try to get the GUI to run with the Sun compiler.

    One thing about cross compilation is that on every platform except Sun, I compile with gcc.

    I am a big believer in interface ergonomics. Let me define what I mean by ergonomics in an interface. An ergonomic interface is one where the user feels comfortable using the application. Where using the interface feels intuitive. Clean, consistent and productive interfaces get the GUI out of the way so the user can spend his time using the software. I think my time at Apple ( Macbook Air…drool…. ) years ago has forever changed my perception of how user interfaces should work.

I would like to share three of my favorite links.

    The first one, Ten Ways to Make More Humane Open Source Software has a big of a misleading title. Is should be something like “10 ways to not mess up your GUI”. It is a great article, and well worth taking a look.

    The second article The Rise of Interface Elegance in Open Source Software. This article is more about creeping featuritis and learning to say no.

    The last article The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story, is a bonus. Just a rant on how difficult some interfaces are and mentions “Aunt Tillie”.

Here is a great rule from Joel on Software on UI design.

A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.

2008 (or 4706 in the Chinese calendar) is the Year of the Rat using the Chinese calendar.

    They really do suck at marketing OpenSolaris. I don’t know how much they want to be in the Ubuntu / Fedora space. OpenSolaris has live disk ( finally ), so you can try it out.

    I spent a lot of time last week trying to get my application up and running. I did not spend time debugging or anything productive like that. I spent most of the time doing other things waiting for downloads.

    So, here is my first reason. The line between OpenSolaris and Sun seems to be as distinct as mud. You are bouncing back and forth between the two sites. One site for this, one sie for that.

    The second reason is the Sun Java Downloader is just evil. I never could get a complete download. My favorite error message was that I had completed too many successful downloads and would not let me download anymore. I guess for Sun, successful is zero. I finally downloaded the Indiana Developers Preview using bittorrent which is light years ahead of that Java thing.

    Finally , what is happening with Sun studio ? I download a copy of OpenSolaris and I have to go to Sun to get Sun Studio? Can’t you just admit that gcc is a good compiler and included it on the live CD.

    All that said, I really do wish to get my stuff running on OpenSolaris. Then again, I was really frustrated with Fedora a few years back. Redhat turned that around, and I think Sun will also.

    I added a link to Lawrence Scott’s blog. Not much there now, but I think he will start writing more.