[ruby-talk:01699] Re: New Ruby projects

((comp.lang.misc + cc: ruby-talk ML))

Clemens Hintze <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:[e-mail]...
> Conrad Schneiker writes:
> > ((comp.lang.misc + cc: ruby-talk ML))
> >
> > Clemens Hintze <[e-mail]> wrote in message
> > news:[e-mail]...
> ...
> > FLTK looks very interesting, but it unfortunately doesn't seem to
> > have as strong and broad a group of developers as wxWindows, nor
> > nearly as many users, nor the same level of documentation. (These
> > are just my general
>
> Hah! Gotcha you! :-)))

Not quite. FLTK was one of several interesting packages discussed in the
Python GUI discussion summary and comparison URL that I posted in my
previous note, and that I also posted prior to that in a still earlier note.

> Please consider following sentence:
>
>    Ruby looks very interesting, but it unfortunately doesn't seem to
>    have as strong and broad a group of developers as Perl or Python,
>    nor nearly as many users, nor the same level of documentation.
>
> ;-))))

Good try--except that FLTK is leftover from an abandoned project and seems
to be advancing at a snail's pace compared to its competition, whereas in
contrast, Ruby is already in the midst of making dramatic improvements in
each of the areas mentioned above.

> > Looking over the GUI evaluations/debates by the Pythons, the
> > strongest proponents seem to generally favor wxWindows, and they
> > further claim that the wxWindows people are quite favorably inclined
> > toward Python and are quite helpful. This is an issue that they have
> > been delving into pretty
>
> Hmm! I cannot remember right now, but did they ever take FLTK into
> consideration? And did they decide explicitely against FLTK and *for*
> wxWindows?

It is mentioned in the twice previously posted URL. I know it was discussed
in comp.lang.python, but its proponents were pretty much unsuccessful in
winning any significant number of people over. I don't recall all the
reasons, but I think it was perceived as interesting but immature and not
likely to ever catch up with wxWindows, which has pretty much proved itself
to many python's satisfaction.

If you were going to argue for an alternative to wxWindows, I think GTK
would be the best choice, if it were not for the fact that GTK is not yet
well supported under Windows 98/NT/2000. With Ruby's OO & RAD capabilities,
you could conceivably make the world's best and most powerful GUI IDE with
Ruby/GTK, which would then greatly increase the motivation for
cross-platform GTK. (When I say GUI IDE, I do not mean pure GUI, but GUI
where GUI makes sense, and text where text makes sense.)

Would you, Matz, and other people support putting Ruby/GTK in the standard
distribution?

Conrad