From: Craig T M. <cm...@ch...> - 2012-03-30 13:01:18
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Wow. I've stepped into (and probably added fuel to) a firestorm. I'd like to suggest that this is not the forum for arguing the merits of iOS vs Android. Some of us are a bit fanatical about iOS (OK, I'm one of them), and some fanatical about Android. But we're all unified in being fanatical about Jmol. I think we can all agree that Jmol should be accessible to as many people on as many platforms as possible. In the days of CHIME, one could write a WEB page that included glorious interactive content, but users who did not install the plug-in (or who were using newer cutting edge browsers, if I remember correctly) were met with an error message. Jmol's biggest advancement (among a huge list of advancements) was fixing that glaring problem. I can write a WEB page with embedded molecules and be assured that every user sees what I want. Alas, we're now revisiting history. One can argue that this is all Apple's fault for not supporting Java, but that won't change reality. We can't simply tell users the equivalent of "well, just stay with Netscape 4.x and everything will be fine." They will use what they use - and we want to reach them all. And as with CHIME, authors will be less inclined to use Jmol if they know that there are significant markets that cannot be reached. So yes, Jmol should run on Android, and yes, it should run on iOS, regardless of where one stands in the platform war... The challenge of open source is "who's going to fix this and how?" Perhaps our discussion should move in that direction? Thanks to everyone for their passions - that's what keeps Jmol dynamic!! Craig Martin cm...@ch... |