From: Clemens Hintze <c.hintze@...>
Date: 2000-03-03T08:56:55+01:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:01702] Re: New Ruby projects

Conrad Schneiker writes:
> ((comp.lang.misc + cc: ruby-talk ML))
> 
> Clemens Hintze <clemens.hintze@alcatel.de> wrote in message
> news:lkog8xl2sz.fsf@alcatel.de...
> > Conrad Schneiker writes:
> > > ((comp.lang.misc + cc: ruby-talk ML))
> > >
> > > Clemens Hintze <clemens.hintze@alcatel.de> wrote in message
> > > news:lkputfypum.fsf@alcatel.de...
> > ...
> > > 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.

I didn't know. I was not following that URL. Sorry for that! I must
have overseen FLTK in your note :-(

I will dig a hole and jump in, ok? ;-)

> 
> > 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

Uh?!? I thought, I know the history (the official one!). Was it
changed last year? :-/

It was never left over, following the official history. Mr. Spitzak
has written it for in-house software. The company, he works for, has
agreed to release the FLTK under the LGPL. Then his boss has changed.

Now the new politik become, that the company will not any longer allow
to distribute FLTK because they feared, that someone could come and
give them juristic difficulties (sorry, I do not know the right word),
if something went wrong because of using FLTK in other projects of
other companies (i.e. they would be made responsible for it).

Because FLTK was already under LGPL they recognize at least, that they
couldn't stop it! So they had stated that Mr. Spitzak couldn't work
for FLTK in his working-time as he was allowed before! Furthermore
they wouldn't distribute FLTK any longer, nor help of doing so.

Fortunately Mr. Sweet was using FLTK in his own company 'EasySW'. He
has then taken over the coordinaten role from Mr. Spitzak. Furthermore
the FLTK has found a home of machines in his company.

From this time on FLTK is continuous evolving. It is used in a number
of apps, commercially and free sw. Some Linux distributions have
already detect FLTK and include it into theirs distribution.

> 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.

That is FLTK too. They work on drastic improvements that would lead to
FLTK 2.

...

> > 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.

Immature?!? I really should have followed that discussion! Perhaps I
will try to have a look and examine theirs reason. It is really a
pitty! I thought, they have not used it because there was no extension
for it. Whereas there was an extension for wxWindows already. But
perhaps I felt wrong :-/

...

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

I would use Ruby/GTK instead of wxWindows if I have a choice! But if
the Ruby/FLTK extension is ready, I will forget all the other and use
this; regardless of what is default GUI in Ruby ;-)))

My experiences by using toolkits like Tk, GTK, Motif (igitt!
Shudder!), MFC, AWT and Swing, have shown me that, IMHO, FLTK is
unbeatable in terms of speed, small memory footprint and
extensibility. But, of course, these are only my experiences. Perhaps
other have made not the same ones, 'though.

> 
> Conrad

\cle

-- 
Clemens Hintze  mailto: c.hintze@gmx.net