It is true that Perl can be cryptic. But it doesn't *have* to be, it
depends on the programmer and the comments.
A long time ago I did a lot of programming in Cobol. Cobol is, of course,
very English like, and can be *very* readable. But I can tell you that it
can also be very, very cryptic depending on the programmer.
Perl has the benefit of being very portable and having an excellent
expansion network (CPAN) and a lot of support. Now, I have to say I've
heard rumors that Perl version 6 might be a very significant shift from
earlier versions, and might break code and the way we've been used to doing
things. If that's the case, then that's the time to examine all options
and perhaps decide it's time to use a different language. I'm not wedded
to Perl, it's just the most prevalent and expandable one I currently know
how to program in.
It's also not that cross-platform when it comes to Macs, though. Perl/Tk
works there, but only under X-Windows not under the native GUI. On the
Mac, I use it for scripting, but my GUI development is done in RealBasic.
I've considered using Tcl/Tk which is native on all three platforms. I
know enough Tcl to work with it, but would have to really brush up to make
that move. And, Tcl isn't as easily expandable yet as far as I know. The
whole CPAN thing doesn't have a real, solid, workable equivalent in Tcl, at
least last I knew.
Tony
--On March 28, 2008 9:12:18 AM -0400 Paul Flint <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear Tony,
Eric Raymond referred to perl as "Write Only"
http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/help/lang/python/vsperl.html
http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/w/write-onlylanguage.html
On the other hand python...
Hmmm...
Regards,
Flint
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Tony Harris wrote:
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:59:08 -0400
From: Tony Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Attention GUI programmers: your advice, please?
Neat. Bookmarked. Thanks!
Of course it doesn't help me all that much, since I don't know Python at
this point. I keep thinking I'd like to learn it, though. But having
lots of Perl knowledge it's tough to justify using something else when
I'm just trying to keep up with projects...
Tony
--On March 28, 2008 8:55:17 AM -0400 Paul Flint <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear Tony,
Pycard.
http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net/
Regards,
Flint
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Tony Harris wrote:
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:12:13 -0400
From: Tony Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Attention GUI programmers: your advice, please?
To be honest, most of my GUI development hasn't been with scripting
languages. But that which I've done has been with mainly Perl and
Perl/Tk, which is neither flexible nor robust compared with other
tools. I had grabbed wxPerl but never got around to learning or using
it.
I think it's a balance between cross-platform and native-looking in
most cases. The more cross-platform you get (i.e. without having to
recode anything) the less native you end up with because things just
don't transport as easily as would be nice.
Java apps might be a good example. They're sort of cross-platform, but
never do quite look like a native Mac app. (They don't perform like
one either!) But people are willing to put up with that, knowing that
they can run the same app the same way on all platforms. (Well,
mostly...)
Of your four, I'd probably go for wxPython just because it seems the
best balance. Not so old, not so slow, and better cross-platform than
the other three.
Tony
--On March 27, 2008 5:55:04 PM -0400 Richard Lawrence
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'm writing this afternoon to see if anyone has any advice on GUI
programming with Python. I am about to embark upon a project to
develop a (hopefully cross-platform) GUI for an app which at the
moment only has a web interface.
I've never really done any GUI programming, because (as a philosophy
major by trade) I have gotten in programming for the fun of it, and
everything about GUIs looks distinctly un-fun to me. It all seems
horribly messy, this business of having different events and different
widgets and properties and [blah blah blah all the other things HTML
forms don't have]. So I'd like to find a way to do it as painlessly
and as Pythonically as possible.
I have looked into the main GUI toolkits for Python, and the consensus
seems to be:
1. TkInter -- old, stale, not a good choice for new development
2. wxPython -- newer, not so stale, aims for "native look and feel",
but has some quirks in my mind, like not looking very native on OS X
3. PyQt -- I've heard it's slower and weirdly licensed; I haven't
tried it, but suspect it suffers from some of the same quirkiness as
wxPython
4. PyObjC/PyGTK/etc. -- obviously allow for the most native look and
feel on a particular platform, but at the expense of not supporting
the others
Does anyone have any experience with one or more of these? Can you
help steer me toward a best-of-all-evils?
Richard
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Paul Flint
Barre Open Systems Institute
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Work: (202) 537-0480
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Consilium
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valet /V\
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/************************************
Based upon email reliability concerns,
please send an acknowledgement in response to this note.
Paul Flint
Barre Open Systems Institute
17 Averill Street
Barre, VT
05641
http://www.bosivt.org
http://www.flint.com/home
skype: flintinfotech
Work: (202) 537-0480
Fax: (703) 852-7089
Consilium
gratuitum .~.
valet /V\
quanti /( )\
numerantur ^^-^^
