An old fashioned guy
I’m attempting to use ECMA 334 (.Net or Mono – in my case, Mono) to create some cross-platform applications. Before striking out on my own programs I decided to attempt to run through an exercise in a book to create their application first, especially as it’s something I can use.
The book is [i]Practical Mono[/i] by Mark Momone (APress) and the application is an RSS reader. This is application useful to me because I should be able to modify it to store the feeds in a common place on my server. Currently I’m using Thunderbird to read the RSS feeds I’m interested in, which works fine, but since the RSS info is stored locally I have to coordinate which things I’ve read where, etc. Having a common storage area would alleviate this problem.
OK, now that you have the background here’s my beef: The book uses System.Windows.Forms (that’s fine) but I want to use GTK#. In order to create the menus for the application the book puts it all in code. Any tutorials that reference creating menus using GTK# want me to use the graphical tool to do that.
I’m minimally competent in using designer interfaces. Actually, using the word “minimally” might be giving myself too much credit. My brain just doesn’t work that way. Simple stuff I’m OK with. I’m using MonoDevelop for the application work and I can muddle through that OK. But grab a picture of a control and put it on a page and then edit it? I just don’t see it.
As an aside, I was in some sort of “play nice with others” training at work (and got in trouble for stating that “sometimes I think other people are idiots because they are”, but never mind that) and the instructor used a bit of video tape with MLK’s “I have a dream” speech. After she was done with the clip, she was talking about how the words he used invoked a visual response. I told her that it didn’t for me. Yes, the words were inspiring, but I didn’t see pictures in my mind. Turns out everyone else did. I think this is just another aspect of my having issues with what appears to me to be complicated visual cues.
Oh, and I get my daughter to use The Gimp/Photoshop to fix up images for me. If it’s more than cropping or changing the size I just don’t get it. All those layers? Just more opportunity for me to get lost in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Am I the only person left who wants to write code instead of using drag and drop? I’ve wondered if it’s just something built into my brain or if all those years of only having a command line have ossified my brain paths into ruts that I can no longer see out of as I wander down the aisles of new development.
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