The Kompany & Black Adder

[Boudewijn Rempt]

Andrew Brown <killspam at darwinwars.com> wrote:

> I have been playing with a beta version on Windows 2000.  Apparently it 
> works better on other platforms. For me at the moment it is completely 
> unusable, largely because it crashes every time it enters the debugger (and 
> also when I start a new project). The editor is a mess, too. On the other 
> hand, the email support I have been getting has been courteous, helpful, and 
> well-informed. I think these guys will get there in the end. The next beta 
> should be usable, and the one after that useful. I really hope they succeed, 
> and not just because I paid for it :-)

> Has anyone used BA successfully under Linux?

I've used BlackAdder (second beta - the first one was more of a
statement of intent) on Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Linux (SuSE 6.4,
8.0 and 7.1). I haven't had many stability problems, but there are many
lacunae. I can't find a python output window, for instance. However, I
think that most of the problem will be resolved before the final release.

And the gui designer - based on Qt Designer - must rank as the best and
most complete gui designer available for Python. PyQt is already one of
the most full-featured Python gui toolkits, and Qt designer makes it
very easy to design complex layouts using PyQt's layout manager
classes, for instance. The other components of BlackAdder are very
good, too, like the editor Scintilla.

I think that the future of BlackAdder is very bright, since it is so
tightly coupled to Qt's progress, which is rapid. The next generation
of Qt offers even better internationalisation and a vastly expanded gui
designer - features BlackAdder will provide, too.

And there's a book on BlackAdder in PyQt in the works. I'm currently
writing the chapters on string handling and 'theming and skinning' ;-).

-- 
Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org