[ruby-talk:7409] Re: GUIs for Rubies

On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, you wrote:
> "Conrad Schneiker" <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
> > So, for Dave's proposed purpose of closure-seeking, I
> > (provisionally) think GTK+ would be the best choice for the time
> > being (relative to all of the above considerations).
> 
> Before we shut the door, I wouldn't mind some discussion on FOX. I've
> downloaded it and had a play, and it seems quite nice. Not as fancy
> as GTK, but pretty straightforward to use, and with a very familiar
> L&F for windows users.
> 

I just DL'd FOX as well, but won't get to playing with it until Saturday
morning, as the lady is urging it's time for bed :-)

In the meantime, I think it is very importatn to keep in mind that true
cross-platform -does- include Macintosh.  No, I am not a Mac user, but I do
know that anything in the near future I will be working on has to play in
Windows, Mac, and (my personal insistance) Linux. Relying on Mac-Linux distros
in the future doesn't solve this issue. BeOs and BSD, which nice to have, are
not IMO a priority, although anything that plays well in Linux should be an
easy port to these two.

My basic feeling is that core code for a cross platform project, especially one
that is open source, should be consistent throughout all platforms, although
requiring platform-specific compilations of the code is not IMO a serious
downside. Having played with Ruby for about four days now, I really like what
it can do but do need the GUI stuff if at all possible.  Compilation (Ruby2Exe)
is also a priority for projects, not for the corporate proprietary issues noted
before (secuirty through obscurity is a stupid policy IMO) but for minimizing
end-user confusion over the install process. (DLing libraries yada, yada, yada
is soenthing that majority of end users -won't- do even if they can figure
-how-) Duccess of an application depends upon (1) does what it promises, (2)
doesn't blow up the end user's computer and (3) is a one-click install and they
are up and running.

From the developer end, IMO, Ruby is awesome (at least it flows naturally for
me) and I would like to see it be the same from the en-user end. IOW Ruby
appears to make coding complex logic a lot easier (meaning faster) than some
other well-know languages, but to become truly accepted it needs to deliver
end-user experiences that are even more simple (by orders of magnitude).

If we are getting inot the GUI arena, we should IMO be thinking along these
lines :-)

My 2 cents

Kent Starr
[e-mail]

PS. Licensing is an issue for the GUI toolkit, as well.  -All- of our projects
are/will continue to be open source as we believe that to be the best route to
rapid, feature riich, bug-free production.