Subject: CCL:Gaussian revised GUI

From: Bill Ross <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:20:19 -0800 (PST)

I've been in this business a long time, and I've not seen terribly many
	cases where people wanted useability vs. feature improvements 

This has been my perception as an AMBER developer.

	Rewriting and validating code's
	a SIGNIFICANT undertaking, and not one to be taken on whim.  I've
	only seen a little GAMESS and AMBER recently, and their input
	(Fortran NAMELIST, I think) is 1960's technology.  So it's not just
	Gaussian to which this argument can be applied.

One misconception is that code needs to be rewritten to
support a GUI. Actually, a GUI can be made to drive the
old code via its old interface, by generating the input
files and optionally launching the programs.

	...  There are probably new things which I am unaware
	of, as I've not worked in the QM business since 1995.  It would not
	surprise me if doing the GUI (or API) is harder work than getting the
	algebra of the QM code "right", too.

Yes, the friendly user interface that is also correct is
a significant undertaking in its own right. It requires
enough user base to justify the expense, particularly
users with money and who are not handy with the sorts of
abstractions that may be involved. Given the high percentage
in science of folks who are used to working at the margins 
with hacked-together tools, one can imagine that some part 
of the industry will be able to survive by providing the 
best/latest science, whatever the interface. 

Bill Ross