Perhaps you're both right. It would be entirely convenient for there to be a standardized interface with gui generating applications or extensions. And yes, such a standardized language as SQL is required for this kind of an undertaking. Maybe that's what needs to be done. Maybe someone with some experience and three fourths of a brain should whip up an RFC for a standardized interface for GUI apps (SGL -> Standardized GUI Language). Once the community has beaten around a bunch of ideas, a standard could be developed, and then we could work on the DBI equivalents for interfacing each GUI module or application via SGL. A standard has to start as an idea and become a standard. Of course there will be functionality within some specific GUI apps that would not be supported directly through the SGL, but eventually vendors/developers would include ways of accessing this functionality via extended SGL commands.
*shrug*
A lack of a standard is often an indication that a standard needs to be developed, rather than a sign that all movement in the direction of a standard is hopeless.
If such a standard would exist, I certainly would
consider writing some GUIs after all. My attempts thusfar
have stranded at the superficial use of quite a variety of
toolkits.