From: Mark Haniford <markhaniford@...>
Date: 2006-04-09T06:08:49+09:00
Subject: Re: is GUI a weak point?

On 4/6/06, Martin Coxall <azrael@cream.org> wrote:
>
> On 5 Apr 2006, at 22:06, Carl Woodward wrote:
>
> > No one is intending a flame war but I have seen java do a lot of good
> > thick client work and I have had it running (with speed) on linux,
> > windows and osx. This includes swing and SWT. I'm not saying that java
> > is great but I am saying that the ideas that they have work really
> > well for certian situations.
>
> Ah, me to. But my point is, that even when you use SWT, a supposedly
> cross-platform toolkit, you still end up having to support 3+
> similar, but slightly different GUI codebases and polish each one to
> the expecations of users for Linux/Mac/Windows.
>
> It's a lot of work; the notion of a cross-platform gui is something
> of a myth.
>
> In Rubyland, wxRuby � SWT.
>
> Martin
>

When we talk about crossplatform, we're talking at the application
source code level, and not at the library implementation level.  The
vast majority of software is using some kind of operating system
service or native library at some point in time.

Of course you'll never have total native fidelity or have the full
range of desktop level services, but that's the price you pay for not
using the native GUI code for each and every platform.