[Pythonmac-SIG] coding preference

[Jack Jansen]

On 19-jan-05, at 18:54, Chris Barker wrote:

> I've never used QT, so I can't speak to the advantages. One reason I 
> would consider switching, however, is that there are more Scientific 
> Widgets for QT (like http://qwt.sourceforge.net/). If you don't have a 
> need for those, then wx should be fine.

I've only used it from C++, and only on Linux (the multimedia projects 
I do tend to grow platform-dependent UI solutions), but I was favorably 
impressed. Functionality tends to be in the place where you expect it, 
which is where most GUI packages break down (including Cocoa), and the 
documentation is pretty good. For Linux standards things look 
absolutely great on-screen.

Which brings me to my real point: I don't think a good cross-platform 
GUI toolkit is possible. Period. There are some things that simply 
cannot be matched programmatically, specifically when paradigms are 
different. So while a really good x-platform GUI toolkit may get the 
"look" right, I don't think it'll ever manage getting the "feel" right. 
Which means your stuck with the worst of both worlds: something that 
looks like a (say) Mac application but doesn't behave like it.

My solution: for throwaway applications consider a cross-platform 
toolkit, for anything serious use MVC and code the view and controller 
in a platform-native toolkit.
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman