RE: [rgui-dev] RE: Backend Debouch

[Rich Kilmer]

Tom,

I really don't think there is a huge installed base using ANY Ruby GUI
bindings.  Even with Fox on Win32 the damn thing dies if you try and
start and run another Ruby thread.  I do _a lot_ (as in my day job) of
Ruby development and GUI stuff just has not been needed (yet) but going
forward I believe it is critical to the success of Ruby as a language to
build solutions in.

I think that mirroring the SWT approach would yield you a much greater
degree of control to build a Ruby-way API than other approaches such as
Fox, Wx, GTK, etc since the main principal is to keep all the logic in
the higher level language (and out of C).  This will allow us to build
really nice, pure Ruby logic above those low level primitives.

Regards,

Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden 
> [mailto:address@hidden On 
> Behalf Of Tom Sawyer
> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 11:36 AM
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [rgui-dev] RE: Backend Debouch
> 
> 
> Laurent,
> 
> first let me tahnk you for all your input. i think the SWT 
> idea is a very smart, practical and plausble appraoch and if 
> i can orgianize the logistics of accomplishing it, then i 
> think it a worthy of pursuit that we may take. i would say 
> that, at this moment, i am squarely in the middle of this and 
> could go either way depending.
> 
> so it is important that i hear the opinions of our other 
> members first, before i make any such major decisions.
> 
> in the mean time i will continue the course of action i am 
> taking now and see how well it pans out, as you suggest. 
> perhaps when you get a chance you can check out the code. 
> granted it is primitave now, but it actually produces simple 
> working (mostly) GUIs.
> 
> ~tom
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2002-08-27 at 09:09, Laurent Julliard wrote:
> > Tom Sawyer wrote:
> > > NOTICE TO ALL GUTOPIANS: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THREAD, SOME 
> > > ADDITIONAL INPUT WOULD BE VERY USEFUL. PLEASE EXPRESS 
> YOUR OPINION 
> > > AS THIS COULD FUNDEMENTALLY CHANGE HOW WE PROCEED.
> > > 
> > 
> > Cannot agree more ;-) If one day my advice prove to be pure crap a
> > couple of people will probably come to me and ask a few 
> questions....
> > 
> > > 
> > > hmmm...so back to the main point: SWT C source versus using 
> > > Ruby-Gnome, SWin/VRuby, and RubyCocoa/RubyAEOSA. okay, here are, 
> > > point by point, the questions i need answered:
> > > 
> > > * who will do the "JNI" C translation for Ruby. i fear it 
> is out of 
> > > my league, as i haven't used C for over 10 years.
> > > 
> > > * if we use SWT who will build the respective GUtopIa backend 
> > > interfaces? I can hadle one of them (GTK's) while i 
> hammer out the 
> > > the primary meta-api, like i'm doing presently, but not all.
> > > 
> > 
> > You know what. Take the lazy path for now. See if the 
> existing MSwin 
> > and
> > GTK backend can be used for an SWT like approach. If it 
> works then fine 
> > keep them. If you realize in the course of this first 
> prototype that it 
> > requires too many changes or doesn fit well with the SWT 
> approach then 
> > you know what to do.
> > 
> > > * how do we integrate ParaGUI, Wise, or other backends if we use 
> > > SWT?
> > > 
> > 
> > As I said once you have proven the GuTopia approach is the 
> right one I
> > expect ParaGUI, Wise and other backends author to maintain 
> the GUTOPIA 
> > backend
> > 
> > > * finally, is licensing an issue?
> > > 
> > 
> > You mean, is GPL an issue ?? :-) You are going for GPL 
> right (or may 
> > be
> > LGPL)
> > 
> > > ~tom
> > > 
> > > p.s. i read most of those readings you linked for me and 
> also looked 
> > > at the java code a bit. they make some fair arguments and i have 
> > > already implemented some of those notions into gutopia. the java 
> > > code is quite large, just a single widget had what appeared to be 
> > > some odd thousnad lines of code. is this perhaps due to the 
> > > one-to-one correlations? well, there was a lot of 
> remarked docs in 
> > > there too, so i'm sure that counts for a good bit. it just seems 
> > > rather large to me, but perhaps that's just how it ends up when 
> > > complete and i'm being nieve.
> > > 
> > 
> > It is a big thing but but as you said it is also a piece of 
> literacy :-) 
> >   Don't let the size impress you. Their approach is very 
> mechanical as 
> > I
> > said and it probably generates under-optimized code here 
> and there. But 
> > as I said this is on purpose. They wanted the low level stuff to be 
> > simple-stupid and based on uniform interfacing and coding 
> principle. In 
> > some way they applied the famous POLS principle.
> > 
> > Keep going, start something... and more people will join.
> > 
> > Laurent
> > --
> > Laurent JULLIARD - Xerox R&T/SSTC/XPA - Open Source team
> >  >> Host your Xerox Software project on CodeX: 
http://codex.xerox.com
>  >> address@hidden community: http://xww.linux.world.xerox.com
> 
> 
> 
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> 
-- 
~transami



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