From hinsenk@ERE.UMontreal.CA Sat Apr 13 11:46:23 1996 Received: from harfang.CC.UMontreal.CA for hinsenk@ERE.UMontreal.CA by www.ccl.net (8.7.1/950822.1) id LAA21765; Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:17:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: from eole.ERE.UMontreal.CA (eole.ERE.UMontreal.CA [132.204.10.20]) by harfang.CC.UMontreal.CA with ESMTP id LAA22568 (8.6.11/IDA-1.6); Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:16:28 -0400 Received: from cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA by eole.ERE.UMontreal.CA (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/5.17) id LAA06491; Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:16:27 -0400 Received: by cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/5.17) id LAA28266; Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:16:26 -0400 Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:16:26 -0400 Message-Id: <199604131516.LAA28266@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> To: h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk CC: chemistry@www.ccl.net In-reply-to: (h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk) Subject: Re: CCL:Java and other WWW developments From: hinsenk@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Konrad HINSEN) > Paul Weber writes > > >A common vision is to think of the Browser as the new desktop, or GUI to > >your work. You might, in the not too distant future, get a chemistry > >version of "plug and play" where a molecule sketched in a Tripos applet is > >used to pull out compounds from an MDL database, some of which are then > >minimized using the Merck FF, all on the same page (which could then be > >stored or "registered" as a notebook page that could be searched later). I don't quite see why such a level of interoperability should suddenly become possible. If vendors had wanted this to happen, it could have happened long ago. It is mainly marketing strategy, not technical problems, that has brought us incompatibilities. > The Web as a new operating system metaphor is also the objective of the > X-Window consortium, and perhaps even Apple OpenDoc/Cyberdog. Probably because they see it as the only way to break Microsoft's monopoly on conventional operating systems and office software. Again marketing strategy. Not that I oppose it, but it should be clear what the real motivations are. If the goal was to create an open GUI/API for interoperable small applications, then from a purely technical point of view a Web browser is far from optimal. > >I think that it is a good time for the community to search for acceptable > >standards, such as SGI's Molecular Inventor, Tripos's SLN, DayLight's > >SMILES, or the PDB (yuck). The chemistry community could then promote the Let's stress "community" and "search". The more typical scenario in the computer business is that the first system/format/whatever on the market that is good enough becomes a de-facto standard, even if its limitations are already predictable. This has brought us the dominance of Fortran, the IBM PC architecture, Windows, PDB as a general chemical file format, and other "standards" that now force many developers to waste countless hours with outdated technology. And it seems we have not learned anything from these examples. Instead of searching for the best way to create a system of small interoperable applets by carefully evaluating the existing proposals and implementations, with the goal of creating a better one, we all jump on the Java bandwagon as if it was the road to salvation. In fact, Java might have set a new record by being the first system widely hailed as the next standard before it was even available to the general public! Even now there is very little practical experience with non-trivial Java applications. Instead we should be gathering experience and analyzing what is good and bad about Java and other approaches to integrating software building blocks (i.e. other modular interpreted languages such as Perl, Python, and Tcl, multi-language integration approaches such as CORBA or the GNU Guile project, data interchange standards such as CDF, etc.). After a year or two, we could then make an informed decision about standards, instead of a rushed agreement on something that might turn out to be the next stumbling block to progress. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konrad Hinsen | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca Departement de chimie | Tel.: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 3953 Universite de Montreal | Fax: +1-514-343-7586 C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/Nederlands/ Montreal (QC) H3C 3J7 | Francais (phase experimentale) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From craig@occam.gh.wits.ac.za Sat Apr 13 13:46:23 1996 Received: from occam.gh.wits.ac.za for craig@occam.gh.wits.ac.za by www.ccl.net (8.7.1/950822.1) id MAA22636; Sat, 13 Apr 1996 12:51:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from craig@localhost) by occam.gh.wits.ac.za (8.6.12/8.6.9) id SAA04215; Sat, 13 Apr 1996 18:52:09 +0200 Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 18:52:07 +0200 (GMT+0200) From: Craig Taverner X-Sender: craig@occam.gh.wits.ac.za To: Konrad HINSEN cc: chemistry@www.ccl.net Subject: Chemistry, the WWW and Java In-Reply-To: <199604131516.LAA28266@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To everyone discussing the Java and WWW developments issue This whole discussion is clearly something that the chemical community needs to (and apparently wants to) discuss in detail. Since it is not what is usually discussed in the CCL list, I wonder whether we should consider having an alternative list service to discuss this topic itself. I personally am finding it very interesting and am completely happy with it on the CCL, but am worried that there may be many who would like the CCL to stick to CC, and cause this discussion to die. From the discussion so far, I gather that there is reason to believe that it should definitely continue. Should it be moved to a new list, another list, or just stay right here at CCL? Cheers, Craig "Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining." -- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal Craig Taverner Structural Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa tel: +27-11-716-2290 fax: +27-11-716-3826 email: craig@hobbes.gh.wits.ac.za www: http://www.gh.wits.ac.za/craig