On Tuesday, 26 May 2026 at 16:42:16 UTC, c-smile wrote:
widget tree is DOM tree by any means.
Sorry but I had to comment on this nonsense.
Firstly, the only two similarities between the two are:
- Yes, they are both trees.
- They both represent a hierarchy.
And that is where similarities END!
Now let's talk about differences...
1) Mutability
In many GUI toolkits widget trees are completely immutable
(Flutter is perfect example), while DOM is complete opposite - it
is highly mutable where DOM node is a HEAVY, long-lived object!
2) Structural purpose
DOM is "the end". It holds everything (styles, layout,
structure). In widget-based world widget-tree is actually
high-level abstraction, while at lower layers you _MUST_ have
element-tree and at the lowest layer the "render-objects".
3) Memory footprint
Widgets in the widget tree are DIRT CHEAP, while DOM nodes, as I
mentioned above are inherently heavy. Creating and destroying DOM
nodes is super slow.
For the record, judging by what type of applications you do with
Sciter I totally understand why Sciter works the way it does (I
looked at the repo earlier today). It is obviously made for
enterprise applications where UX is of paramount importance
("dress to impress"). Those of us who just need couple of forms
to fill data probably will never need a toolkit like this, but
those who do need slick UI on various device types are probably
going to love your product! That is why you should definitely do
a presentation on DConf once you have the Sciter/D ready to try.
