Which GUI?

[Remco Gerlich]

ndev42 at yahoo.com wrote in comp.lang.python:
> This accumulation of layers helps us programmers ship libraries
> and development tools fast, but they certainly do not help out
> the users in the end. Just to get a "Hello world" button with
> Python, you need Python + Tkinter + Tk + Tcl + X11, whereas
> you could have short-circuited that to Python + X11, if an intelligent
> widget set was built directly from X11 in Python. Not just binding
> the X functions, making OO widgets and Python compatibility, too.
> A next step could be to provide the same OO widgets, bound to
> other low-library window libraries on other OS's. That is some
> effort, I realize, but looking back at how much has been spent on
> making free GUI tools already, looks pretty small.

I understand you're volunteering?

> Every time a new layer is added, new compatibility issues are brought
> in. Plus: if you did not develop all the layers, you have to support
> any change in other people's code to keep compatible. Any layer that
> becomes drastically incompatible with a previous version of itself
> propagates this property to the rest of the assembly. This becomes
> a true nightmare when you have several generations of software to
> support on the same machine.

If you make your own library that works on all platforms, *you* will
have to keep up with the latest changes on those platforms. Now the
Tk folks will do that, and the Python people just have to upgrade
their software now and then. But if you have the time, go ahead...

-- 
Remco Gerlich,  scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl
 12:51pm  up 90 days, 18:55,  7 users,  load average: 0.37, 0.26, 0.26