[Baypiggies] native GUI vs. web browser

[Dennis Reinhardt]

At 07:01 PM 12/15/2009, Keith Dart wrote:
>I did attend Mondays talk on wxPython. It was very informative. But it
>reminded me of something I've been thinking about, and one other
>attendee also commented on (I forgot who, sorry). That is that (it seems
>to me) that native GUI development is going the way of the dinosaur.

There seemed to be few enough of us there that the comment you have 
in mind could have been mine.  I have been doing Windows (mostly) 
desktop apps where the app is a temporary http server and the user 
interface is browser based. However ... I would not and hope I did 
not claim native GUI development is going the way of the dinosaur.

In Feb. 2007, I made a Baypiggies presentation in which I outlined my 
experience developing the same Python app with wxPython interface, a 
browser interface, and direct to windows API using ctypes:

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ44E6O09j4

Summary: each did the job but browser was lighter weight and more portable.

Because the "server" is running on the local machine, it has full 
access to the all the facilities Python provides.  Since the server 
binds to 127.0.0.1, there is no possibility of attack from a browser 
on a remote machine.  A remote multi-user implementation is a natural 
extension, if the application and market require that.