Re: [rgui-dev] Re: Say no to SWT! :)

[Leon Torres]

On 28 Aug 2002, Tom Sawyer wrote:

> now you have peaked my interest. this pure-ruby gui tk, i must know what
> you have in mind. or is it too secret? why do i ask? ruby-wise is
> intended to be as pure ruby as possible, but it has a multi-platform
> problem, as it uses XLib. how to solve?

Hmm, I might have an answer.

First, some background. That super-secret project is called Koei and
was started by Danny of RUDL fame. I was going to spearhead development
of Koei using just the SDL backend as the first low-level plugin.
Ruby-wise was on the study agenda; I didn't realize it had cross-platform
issues. Gutopia came into being around then and now it has my mindshare.

I guess ruby-wise should aim to be the TCL/Tk of the Ruby world as I
mentioned at the top of this thread. If so, then it should be independent
of gutopia, but share the same API that the user sees. If my Koei thoughts
are applicable, then such a tk will need to be two tiered: API abstraction
layer and low-level glue. The low level glue should be pluggable: glue for
SDL, glue for xlib, glue for MSWindows, and so on. That should take care
of portability, and I believe this is how TCL/Tk works. Maybe it's time to
study TCL/Tk. :)

- Leon