Pythonic gui format?

[Paul Boddie]

Gregory Petrosyan wrote:
> Thanks for your reply.
> But isn't python code more flexible than XML? I think it's not harder
> to edit py file than xml file.

It's all about integration with tools, and while there are various
situations where avoiding tools is often better than extensive use of
tools (Python vs. Java-plus-Eclipse being an example that springs to my
mind, at least), there are some very good tools for certain kinds of
GUI design; it's better in such situations to make use of those tools
rather than eschew them in favour of something "Pythonic" but, in
various respects, less usable.

Once upon a time, it may have been the case that GUI design tools
(typically for forms-based applications) only produced program code - I
think SpecTcl, for example, was admired for its capabilities but
criticised for its Tcl-centric nature, ultimately forcing many to look
elsewhere despite variants such as SpecPython - but most design tools
now seem to produce some kind of XML description of widgets and
dialogues. How usable to other languages would Glade or Qt Designer be
if they respectively produced just C and C++ code? (Actually, unlike
Tcl, consuming C or C++ produced from the same tools would be an
annoyance in itself, I'd imagine.)

Paul