TCL/TK as default UI toolkit, and wayland

[Michael Torrie]

On 10/14/2016 05:40 AM, kerbingamer376 wrote:
> Python's "standard" (and bundled on most platforms) UI tookkit is TCL/TK. However, this has A LOT of drawbacks:
> 
> * It's eyesore on a lot of platforms

I thought this was largely solved in recent versions of Tcl/Tk that use
the new Tile widget set (ttk) which recent versions of Python, certainly
3.5, support.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.ttk.html

> * It's non-pythonic

Neither is PyQt/Pyside or PyGObject (GTK+ 3), sadly.  PyGTK was rather
pythonic, but since GTK3+ bindings are produced through introspection
utilities, so things aren't nearly so pythonic.  A lot more details are
now leaking through into the python side.  Code tends to read more like
transliterated C++ code now.  But at least the bindings are easy to
generate and keep up to date for the devs.

> * It just flat out fails on some desktop environments

Not sure what you mean by this.  Programs using tkinter crash with an
un-handled exception?

On platforms where tkinter is available, I would say this statement is
flat-out false!

> * On linux it requires X, however lots of distros are now using wayland
> and so on.

I don't think this is a problem.  For one, Tcl/Tk will move to wayland
eventually anyway, and as new Python releases come out, they will tend
to track the Tcl/Tk releases.  Besides that, desktops that use Wayland
will be supporting X11 applications for a long time to come using an
integrated X server.

> I think python needs a new "standard" UI toolkit.

The xkcd comic comes to mind!

Most developers who want to do desktop apps already pick their own tools
to do it.  They make their choice based on a lot of factors that are
unique to their own circumstance.  One size does not fit all.