[ruby-talk:11006] Re: Even Tcl/Tk goes ActiveSTATE

Conrad Schneiker wrote:
> 
> Jeff Hobbs wrote:
> 
> # Conrad Schneiker wrote:
> 
> # > potentially great news for keeping Ruby/Tk viable.
> #
> # I thought Ruby's language binding to Tk was complete.  I always have
> # an open ear (or email box), although I have to admit I know nothing
> # about the Ruby innards (Tk, OTOH, is a good friend).
> 
> My remark was in the context of previous c.l.r discussions about whether
> or not there would be significant future improvements to Tk, which is
> perceived by some-to-many as somewhat lagging other GUI contenders in
> terms of the range of *built-in*, *off-the-shelf* widgets.

I would agree with that.  Tk was great when it came out, and even for
years following.  Nowadays though it just hasn't kept up - in the core
anyway.  There are numerous extensions out there (which you have to
find, compile, etc) which provide some interesting widgets.  It's
interesting to note that both Perl/Tk and Tkinter actually include more
widgets by default that the Tk core for Tcl.

One motivation for 8.4 was to add more core widgets.

> Ruby/Tk seems to me and others to be somewhat sluggish when compared to
> Ruby/GTK (or even Perl/Tk), although I haven't done any serious testing,
> and so this is a strictly tentative subjective impression.

Hmm, this we haven't heard before, except that Tk is slower on Windows
than on Linux.  I have some patches for 8.4 to fix that.

-- 
  Jeff Hobbs                     The Tcl Guy
  Senior Developer               http://www.ActiveState.com/