From: Kevin Smith <sent@...>
Date: 2001-03-09T12:51:02+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:12314] Re: GUI Toolkit for Ruby

jjthrash@pobox.com wrote:
>Bridge patterns.  Anyhow, the basic idea is that you write a
>generic Window class, for instance, which acts as a wrapper to
>whatever GUI Toolkit is desired at the moment.

We had a (brief) thread on exactly this topic 
maybe six months ago.

I played the role of cynic, expressing concern 
that such an approach might be difficult, due to 
extremely different paradigms between some of the 
toolkits.

Then there's the question of ending up with a 
lowest-common-denominator solution that prevents 
you from doing anything really cool on ANY 
platform.

I also mentioned that efforts like wxWindows are 
actually doing this. On a Windows platform, it 
uses Windows primatives. On Linux, it sits on top 
of GTK+. Someone pointed out that GTK+ and Tk are 
both abstractions sitting on top of GDK or X, and 
Windows' GDI routines.

Finally, take everything I say with a grain of 
salt. I'm known for my pragmatism and skeptical 
nature, and I love to be proven wrong by dreamers 
and big-thinkers.

Kevin