Tkinter or wxpython?

[Steve Holden]

Chris Mellon wrote:
> On 06 Aug 2007 09:44:15 -0700, Paul Rubin
> <"http://phr.cx"@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> "Chris Mellon" <arkanes at gmail.com> writes:
[...]
>> Again, it all depends on what you're trying to do.  For data entry
>> stuff you probably want the data on a remote server anyway, and you
>> can do basic CRUD validation with fairly simple javascript.  Maybe
>> that departs from pure HTML but it's nothing like the ajax/dhtml
>> madness that causes the problems you've described.
>> --
> 
> CRUD with javascript is something I actually have a lot of experience
> with. Deficiencies in the data entry UI have real consequences because
> you get invalid data and slow data entry speeds. The auto-completing
> combo-box, for example, is simply impossible in a browser without
> quite complicated (and slow) DHTML and is a huge boon for data entry.
> 
It's not even that easy in wxPython is you choose the wrong widget - I 
tried to make a combo box accept text and select the drop-down elements 
from a database and it turned out to be way too tricky to manage easily.

Having said that, I quickly discovered superior alternatives once I got 
rid of my "it has to be a combo box" mentality. While great GUIs have 
been created as web front-ends it is substantially more difficult to 
create them than it is with a simple-ish GUI toolkit like wxPython, 
particularly with a GUI designer like wxDesigner behind it.

> I'm not trying to claim that there are no benefits to web
> applications. But I often see people touting the web as a *superior
> application platform*, which is simply false, and as innately simpler
> to develop for, which is also false.

I would agree. The inherent state-maintenance and interaction problems 
have caused the ASP.NET model to be somewhat counterintuitive, to say 
the least, though it *has* made it easier to build complex interfaces 
that it is on the "raw web". As with all such things, though, once you 
run into the limits of the model, the promise of "point-and-click 
programming" rapidly becomes a dim memory.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 571 484 6266   +1 800 494 3119
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