From: Dave Burt <dave@...>
Date: 2004-11-25T22:03:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby GUIs and installation effort

"gabriele renzi" <rff_rff@remove-yahoo.it> wrote:
> Dave Burt ha scritto:
>
>> Look at Swing - a minimum of native components, with many lightweight 
>> widgets based on these. This means loose binding to the platform and 
>> hence better/easier portability.
>
> It seem to me that many people "hate" swing, consider it one of the main 
> reason think that java is slow, and generally think SWT is much better.

I'm happy to leave the AWT/Swing debate to c.l.j; suffice it to say my view 
is Swing's API's far better designed (which is more important from toolkit 
user's perspective than how easy it is to port)

> Anyway, I really don't think a real cross platform gui is possible.

Why not?

> Gtk, and wxWidget both use some basic things and build over them to gain 
> portability.
> But even in this case you're requiring the user to install it, and stuff 
> like the platform's interface guideline would be messed up.
>
> I think that stuff like wxruby (or tk, wich I'm told can work with Aqua) 
> is the best you can get.

I don't think anything we have now is the best you can get :)

Maybe the only practical approach to having a Portable Ruby GUI Framework 
(PRGF) is an incremental approach, getting the likes of wx, tk, maybe even 
Gtk, up to speed on the platforms they're behind on.

Call me nuts, I just like the idea of a Ruby toolkit that works out of the 
box on Windows, Mac and *nixes like so much of Ruby's useful libraries.

> just my 0.02 euro

Darn -- outbid! My AUD $0.02 is worth little more than half that, at current 
market rates. I guess you win :)

Cheers!
Dave