Python & TKInter applets

[Moshe Zadka]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2001 18:17:33 +0200, "Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote:
 
> If the answers are 'all platforms', MUST be web-based e.g to allow
> it being updated at any time, it must be client-side e.g. to leave
> the server with a light load, then I think the ONLY answer you can
> try is the JVM -- as least as a plug-in, it's available for most
> browsers, and Python can run on reasonably-updated versions of it
> (see www.jython.org).  Tkinter cannot run on the JVM -- it can only
> run natively on the various different platforms; you will have to
> use Java-classes for your GUI's -- awt, swing, whatever.

I'll just throw another wrench -- Alex is completely right, and completely
wrong. Jython will work on *very few* machines -- the memory requirements
are simply enormous. And of course, most browsers' JVM is so buggy and
slow, users will prefer it if you just launch missiles at them rather
then try to run a Jython application.

The solution?
Well, I would probably use Python on the server side, with HTML+JS on the
client side, and *still* realize I'm not completely portable. *Or*,
I'd write a regular client side app in Python, and have a web page with
JS and some magic which makes it as easy as possible for the user to
install it -- auto-choose Win Installer/RPM/Deb with instructions for
installing it. Which of those two depends on a lot of factors,
but you have to understand the tradeoffs. Jython is yet another tradeoff,
one I'm not sure I'd make.
-- 
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