Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 11:07 pm, Chris Angelico wrote:

>> Isn't there any good GUI IDE like Visual Basic? I hope there are some
>> less well known GUI IDEs which I did not come across. Thanks.
> 
> Sounds like the advantage lies with Python here...
> 
> Don't make a UI by dragging and dropping that many widgets.


And later, in another post:

> the best way to build a cross-platform GUI is code, not drag-and-drop.


I think that's out-and-out wrong, and harmful to the developer community. I
think that we're stuck in the equivalent of the pre-WYSIWYG days of word
processing: you can format documents as nicely as you like, but you have to
use a separate mode to see it.

Drag-and-drop GUI builders have the same advantages over code as Python has
over languages with distinct compile/execute steps: rapid development,
prototyping, exploration and discovery. Of course, any decent modern
builder won't limit you to literally drag-and-drop, but will offer
functionality like duplicating elements, aligning them, magnetic guides,
etc.

GUI elements are by definition graphical in nature, and like other graphical
elements, manipulation by hand is superior to command-based manipulation.
Graphical interfaces for manipulating graphics have won the UI war so
effectively that some people have forgotten there ever was a war. Can you
imagine using Photoshop without drag and drop?

And yet programming those graphical interfaces is an exception. There, with
very few exceptions, we still *require* a command interface. Not just a
command interface, but an *off-line* command interface, where you batch up
all your commands then run them at once, as if we were Neanderthals living
in a cave.

An effective and modern GUI builder UI should be programmable without
requiring programming. About thirty years ago Apple came up with the ideal
mix of graphical and programmatic development for its Hypercard product.
You built applications by dragging and dropping widgets on the screen, or
by copying and pasting them from a library of pre-made widgets. 

(By 2016 standards the UI of Hypercard would seem a bit old fashioned and
primitive -- black and white, bitmapped graphics, no magnetic guides
or "replicate" command, etc -- but it was the mid 80s. A modern GUI builder
wouldn't have those limitations.)

Hypercard let you create a place widgets by hand using the mouse, or by
running a one-line command in the "Message Box" (a simple command
interpreter), and for complex tasks, or by writing a script and executing
it. You didn't have to script the *entire* application, just as much or as
little as needed scripting.

Python would be especially well-suited to this, being an interpreter. Why
should I have to batch up all the GUI elements and run them all at once to
see what my application looks like? Why can't I add elements interactively?

I've made a number of attempts to get into GUI development in Python, and
every time I flounder at the lousy state of the art in GUI builder tools.
Yes, the widget set is fantastic. But putting the GUIs together is
primitive beyond words.

Hypercard, bless Bill Atkinson, is long gone but not forgotten. But today it
lives on in the guise of LiveCode:

http://livecode.com/


If only I could get the Linux installer to actually, you know, *work*.


-- 
Steven