From: fuzz at sys.uea.ac.uk (Farzad Pezeshkpour)
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:54:08 +0100
Subject: The Future of Tk?
References: <371E964F.C531C2A@istar.ca>
Message-ID: <7fmruj$gtm@cpca3.uea.ac.uk>
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X-UID: 1372                                                  

> I don't want to say that this is bad for Tcl users but what about all
> the other languages that use Tk? Isn't writting multiplatform GUI
harder
> using native components.

I don't think that implementing all widgets using custom code on all
platforms is 'lightweight' at
all. The issues about lightweight components for me are performance and
cross-platform
compatibility. By using native components, Tk has moved closer to this
goal. Yes, the differences in
look (and to some extent, feel) of components, when usig native widgets,
can be every-so-slightly
compromised - however, in the case of Tk, I don't find this a major
worry, irrespective of the
manner by which I access Tk (Tcl, Perl, C etc).

> I think Java made big step forward in
> abandoning the native components and using lightweight > ones in
Swing.

I've got a lot good words to say about Swing, but I don't think that
it's too smart to emulate the
<insert os/toolkit> look'n'feel on the same os/toolkit. The results are
typically a poor imitation
and always slow. It reminds me of the days when I used ParcPlace's
Smalltalk - very bad!

Fuzz








