Eric,
> Our approach is philosophically different from uniform platform
> abstraction libraries like wxWindows or AWT.
Have you taken a close look at wxWindows? It is very different
from AWT and I think it actually would fit the AbiWord model very nicely.
wxWindows applications have the native look and feel of the target
OS because they the native GUI for rendering.
> Most XP toolkits attempt
> to create an abstraction layer which is wide enough to accomodate
> virtually all platform-specific functionality. In our approach, we've
> simply admitted that platform-specific code needs to exist, and we've
> adopted a system which helps us deal with it, rather than adopting a
> system which helps us try to avoid it. We still use abstraction to
> hide platform-specific code, but not pervasively so.
The point of using reusable tools is not to "avoid" writing platform
specific code, rather it enables many developers that are trying to
solve the same XP issues to work together for the common good.
What concerns me is that there are so many duplicate porting
efforts going on right now. Mozilla has their XP library, AbiWord
has theirs, etc, etc, etc., etc.
I understand that if there are no existing tools that solve a particular
problem, you may need it improvise. I don't think that that is the
case today. If we can all get together as an industry, we can
eliminate much of that duplication of efforts and truly make the
"Cross Platform Platform" a viable option for developers. Failing
that, there will be a few fragmented XP efforts and a lot of wasted
effort writing duplicate code and we will all be forced to use
Windows 2010.
I agree with a lot of what you said on your web page about the
importance of supporting multiple platforms, but if every application
has to do application specific ports to each OS, it is going to
dramatically reduce the viability of developing for multiple platforms.
To put it another way, wouldn't it be better if the time spent porting
AbiWord to new platforms was instead spent on adding new
features, improving the installer, etc., etc, etc.?
I think projects like AbiWord are leading the way for cross platform
development, but we need to look at the big picture by encouraging
the use of tools that will benefit all XP developers. I believe that can
be done with available tools, without compromising the quality of
the resulting applications.
...just my 2.5 cents.
Regards,
Tom Ryan
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