Python and GUI

[Ed Leafe]

On May 24, 2007, at 10:22 AM, Brian Blais wrote:

> Then there is Dabo, which I personally have had problems with.  I  
> am looking for a
> pythonic, professional looking GUI framework.  I first tried dabo  
> with python 2.4,
> and had to install sqlite, which seemed a bit odd for trying to  
> just get a GUI
> framework...I understand why, but when you're looking for one  
> thing, having it tied
> to a completely different thing feels a little strange.

	FWIW, we made that decision only after Python itself committed to  
including SQLite as part of the standard distribution. While there  
may have been some problems during the transition, such as you  
apparently had, it made for a much better product in the long run.

> I never got it working in
> Python2.5, either on Linux or OS X, and the problem is most  
> definitely mine and I
> didn't have the patience to debug it.  I am really not trying to  
> diss dabo here,
> because there enough people who swear by it, that it must be doing  
> many things right.

	I checked the archives, and didn't find any messages from you asking  
for help. We know that the documentation is far from complete, and  
the installation process can be problematic, but one thing we pride  
ourselves on is quick response to help requests, and then fixing  
whatever it was that caused the initial problem.

> My problem with Dabo is not what it is, it is what I am looking  
> for...a pythonic GUI
> framework.  Coming from Unix, I generally feel that a program  
> should try to do one
> thing, and one thing well.  To mix really different functionality  
> seems to me to be a
> bad idea.  If you can use the GUI parts separately, why not package  
> it separately?
> One might find a lot of users who only what that.

	We've thought about doing exactly that, but to be honest, it would  
take a large investment of time without a corresponding increase in  
value. Right now all you have to do is install Dabo, and then just  
use the dabo.ui classes. You never need to touch the database or  
business object layers if you don't want to.

	Also, I don't feel that we are "mixing different functionality".  
Rather, we are creating an integrated environment for those wishing  
to create rich desktop apps. Nearly all such apps require displaying  
and persisting information, and that's what Dabo is designed to do.  
If you don't need persistent information, the display stuff works  
just fine.

	I'd encourage anyone who is curious about what dabo.ui offers to  
view the part of my recent PyCon presentation that discusses exactly  
this topic. Take a look at http://dabodev.com/pycon2007?3 to see an  
example of simpler and more Pythonic Dabo code is compared to what  
you would have to write in either raw wxPython or even Wax.

-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com