[ruby-talk:8212] Re: GUIs for Rubies

In article <[e-mail]>,
Dave Thomas  <[e-mail]> wrote:
>"Conrad Schneiker" <[e-mail]> writes:
>
>> Let me more or less repeat my earlier question, this time to Dave 
>> (Thomas): what was your reason for telling the XP folks that Ruby 
>> (presumably with Tk) was not up to snuff for heavy GUI lifting? 
>> Performance? Missing many now-common-elsewhere widgets? Or ...?
>
>Because GUI work implies stuff in the client domain. For developers,
>they'll be comparing Ruby to drag-n-drop code builders (Visual Age,
>JBuilder, etc). They'll be look for business objects, tables that link 
>automatically to database queries, and so on and so on. 
>
>You _could_ craft a client application in Ruby today, but you'd be
>doing it without much environmental support, and with no convenient
>end-user deployment mechanism.
>
>Clearly you can do serious work with Tk: SourceNavigator looks great
>and is a Tk application. but it ain't easy, and I think we'd get
>ridiculed if we help Ruby up as a client-side application builder to
>the average Java or VB programmer.
>
>For now, those who are happy working at the API layers know the truth, 
>and they'll be building killer apps using Ruby. Then, when we're
>ready...
>
>
>Dave

A few unsolicited comments:  first, all honor to the
Pragmatic Pair.  Everything I've seen them write has
done a marvelous job of expressing the Ruby spirit
while simultaneously remaining understandable to the
working masses.  I frankly didn't think the book would
manage that balancing act--I was wrong.

I've seen a few of my comments repeated.  Warning:  I
neglect the motivations of the developers Mr. Thomas
correctly describes here.  He's absolutely right:  all
our nattering about FOX, GTK+, and so on, is pointless
to them, 'cause there's no drag-and-drop database
query thingie. 

That doesn't distinguish Tk, though, does it?  Tk (with
VTk, SpecTcl, ...) is just as close to having a competi-
tive builder (in this sense) as wxWindows, FOX, ...,
right?
-- 

Cameron Laird <[e-mail]>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html