[Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 22, Issue 26

[Kirby Urner]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: edu-sig-bounces at python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces at python.org] On
> Behalf Of Bob Noonan
> Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 6:07 AM
> To: edu-sig at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 22, Issue 26


> The one place where Python is clearly deficient IMHO is in GUI
> programming.


For education purposes, you should be able to get away with using Qt4 under
the GPL.  Qt4 is a realistic focus for Python bindings, given its commercial
use in upcoming KDEs (desktop ala Aqua). The underlying model is stable and
mature, not inferior to Swing. Please correct me if my facts are wrong.

Another opportunity with Python is simply to drive home that coding GUI apps
forms an outer shell around a core language, and the same core language may
support several libraries of this type.  So in a Python CS0/CS1 course,
you'd go through several GUI packages in quick succession (eg. Tk, wx, Qt,
Swing via Jython, the .NET GUI very soon).  We don't yet have the textbook
for this, I agree (might be a CD/downloadable addendum, given the swift
evolution of some of these APIs (others, like Tk's, have been essentially
finalized)).

The point you're making is not "you should become a master GUI programmer in
this intro course" (that's not realistic), but "you should have hands-on
experience with the mix-and-match nature of GUI libraries -- they're on a
different level than a core language in many cases, even though languages
like VB, Java, Access VBA, and VFP bundle them together.

Kirby