c) This question preferably to Thomas. Build from Jan,14th have better speed. But I not understood, why program using assembler really slower than Win(tm) and X analogies.

There are many reasons. The most important routines still need to be written in assembler (only one out of 4 is). I have only rearranged the oberon code a bit to make the compiler produced code faster. (Asm would still gain more than a factor of 4 with MMX).

(I'm not a programmer and reading sources can't help me :() Only differences at user look is transparency. Semi-transparency is very slow to calculate (do you have a MMX enabled processor ?)

The only two things that are slower are filtered-zooming and (slowest) semi-transparent-filtered-zooming.

Of course, I can use more powerful CPU. But. Do You like intention make redraw window after dragging or scrolling desktop? As is in other GUIs? Maybe I will reduce the quality while dragging windows. This will help much in zoomed situations.

--Thomas

a) Aos look as good system. Thanks Pieter and others. But without application it will die. Native BB application will be late (may be...) Now primary application is Oberon system. But it not use new features from BB and still one task, one window. <b>Is anybody planing what Oberon active documents, modules etc. must (if need and explicit) have own task in BB? And visually own window like Plug-in Oberon?</b>

It think Oberon is fine like this. As a programming environment, it doesn't need more than this. This kind of developments are now done on Aos. Remind that we also have the Native Oberon release and that it would be unwise with our limited manpower to start forking the code in an Oberon an a Bluebottle version: currently most of the Oberon code is reused without change on Bluebottle.

b) Simply porting application look not reasonable - we already have BSD, Linux ,(Windows, at all) where a lot of application work fine in C/Unix environment and emulate env. is not good idea. ( Except learning purposes ) Who need Apache-featured web-server under BB if we have Apache under Unix? <b>In which fields BB application will use, as suppose it programmers?</b> If it will simply general purposes - without strong rules it will garbage bin ( Linux) and simply written on 'Pascal' ( Linux 'garbage' sometimes very useful, sure, but huge and knotty)

These systems have different goals: Windows and Linux try to maximize number of functionalities they provide, whereas Oberon / Bluebottle's goal is to make simple systems (and as corollary thereof easier to understand, manager, and thus with less errors). Bluebottle in particular is a lean and versatile platform, which provides a HOT (high-level and typed) environment. I would compare it with Java or .NET, which provide a similar programming model (but still follow the "bigger is better" approach). Java is closer to BB, in that its classes model a whole OS, although it relies on a third-party language for the low-level code. .NET is still a managed environment with no OS ambitions (but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it (slowly) becomes the new kernel for Microsoft's applications). In fact, Bluebottle could be an ideal platform for Java and .NET-based systems. A Java VM already exists (a new and improved version will soon be available). It would be an interesting project to see the .NET CLRon Bluebottle too..... Anyway, I think that Bluebottle is idea where the hardware is limited, thus in embedded systems or where the cost factor is important (more hardware, more cost). The education segment, with its often limited budget is definitively a target for Bluebottle (here Linux is a direct concurrent). -Patrik