From: azrael@...
Date: 2006-04-05T19:51:33+09:00
Subject: Re: is GUI a weak point?

On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 07:37:27PM +0900, Carl Woodward wrote:
> Java offers cross platform gui development that doesn't require
> tweaking. 

Believe me, it doesn't. I've spent a significant proportion of my
professional career pushing against this prevalent misfact.

Friends don't let friends Swing. 

SWT, despite IBM's claims to the contrary, needs separate builds for
each platform, similar but not the same UI code, and a significant
amount of work to get the UI to look and feel "right" on Windows, Linux
and Mac OS X, and fit in fully with its UI conventions and way of
working.

Even then, SWT is DOG SLOW on Linux, almost to the point of uselessness.
See: Eclipse.

Ruby's nearest equivalent to SWT is wxRuby, which you've already tried.

There is no such thing as a cross-platform UI. Even with wxRuby, you'll
need to do a lot of work to get the UI to a point where Mac users,
Windows users and Linux users will all hate it equally.

Martin