Jon Aseltine wrote:
>I don't know too much about MFC -- is it something like OpenStep? I was
>thinking of classes for abstractions of widgets (toolbars, menus) and
>also for common protocols (IMAP, FTP, HTTP) as well as glue to hold it
>together (an Application class?).

That sounds a lot like MFC, which I refer to as 
an application (development) framework.

>I was thinking of Linux, but that is probably too narrow. Maybe most
>Unix OSs can be supported? Or at least those with X?

Great. That helps me to understand your 
perspective. 

>Yes. I am interested in the entire desktop, which I consider to be more
>than just a window manager and some icons, but including that stuff too.

If you could have just one piece of this new 
project delivered two weeks from now, what would 
it be?

>I must be misusing my buzzwords. A component could be a Ruby class.

My understanding of component is that it is a 
reusable chunk of binary functionality. Or at 
least that it is usable without knowing or caring 
what language it was written in. 

In other words, I don't think the RAA contains a 
bunch of components. However, someone could take, 
for example, TMail (a library for handling MIME 
email content), and wrap it up in something to 
turn it into a component. The choice of 
"something" here is key--something widespread 
like CORBA, something existing like SOAP/XMLRPC, 
or something invented for this project.

I'm still interested, if I can wrap my mind 
around what we're discussing. I use Gnome now, 
and am generally content with it, if not 
thrilled. My biggest concern about Gnome/KDE is 
that they both seem to be trying to get as big 
and complicated as they can.

Kevin