How is GUI programming in Python?

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

Joe P. Cool writes:

> On 12 Apr., 03:34, baalbek <r... at bgoark.no> wrote:
>
>> Delphi/Object Pascal simply sucks big time!
>
> I disagree. Delphi/Object Pascal with the VCL (Visual Component
> Library) is one of the most sophisticated IDEs ever, even better
> than Qt IMO. [...]

I was somewhat disappointed with Delphi.  I had used Turbo Pascal 15
years ago, which was one of the best IDEs at that time.  It was
really good.  Now, we use Delphi in our institute for measurement
and automation applications with GUI.

It is probably possible to work equally well with Delphi, however,
none of us have found the right IDE settings for this yet.
Especially the behaviour after runtime errors seems to be
unpredictable to us, and it is mostly sub-optimal.  After having
tested most of the dozens of checkboxes I could improve the
situation slightly but not more.

As far as the GUI composing is concerned, this is great with Delphi,
especially for beginners.  However, I still prefer the text-only
programming in e.g. wxPython (and I'm equally fast with it) but this
is a matter of taste.  It's like the Word vs LaTeX or Gnuplot vs
Origin thing I suppose.

All of us were utterly disappointed with the new help system.  This
used to be a stronghold in Borland products but now, you get
explanations à la "Method 'foo': do foo with the object".  Super.

> [...]
>
> Wrong. It does have a GUI builder - a very good one - and you can
> do point and click creation of GUIs (nothing wrong with that) but
> you can also do pure text editor code only programming with it.

This shows another disadvantage of such IDEs, namely the editor
question.  The editor is a very personal piece of software, and I
ended up using Emacs for a lot of my Delphi work.  I don't consider
myself a religious Emacs user -- I was really faster this way.
However, this throws away a lot of the IDE's advantages.  Thus,
having everything in one system is only a good idea if you do
Delpi-only.

>> (did anyone mention waste of one's life?), and don't get me
>> started on that primitive, complete utter waste of language
>> called Object Pascal!
>
> I'm no big Pascal fan either but Object Pascal has a decent string
> library and better container literals than C/C++ and Java. The
> language itself is a matter of taste and I don't waste my time
> discussing it.

Well, there also are objective issues with it that *can* be
discussed.  You mentioned the string library.  This is what caused a
lot of headaches here.  There is a *lot* of doubled functionality
there because there seems to be a transition in Delphi from old to
new string functions.  The difference between Wide Strings and
AnsiStrings is still obscure to me.  In .NET Delphi, this seems to
have been cleaned up, but I haven't used it.

>> Python/wxPython/Glade == real programmer's toolkit
>> Object Pascal/Delphi == the hobbyist/beginner's toolkit
>
> I'm pretty sure that there are more professional software products
> written in Delphi than in wxPython.

Certainly.

Tschö,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus
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