GUIs - A Modest Proposal
in [Python]
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From: Mark Lawrence on 10 Jun 2010 18:02 On 10/06/2010 22:20, rantingrick wrote: [snip most of it] > Free up pydev and send Tkinter to the bitbucket! Great idea, but lets take this further. I don't personally like module xyz, so let's free up pydev and send xyz to the bitbucket because I say so. To hell with anyone elses' views, and trivial little issues like keeping backwards compatibility. Mark Lawrence.
From: geremy condra on 10 Jun 2010 18:17 On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > On 10/06/2010 22:20, rantingrick wrote: > [snip most of it] > >> Free up pydev and send Tkinter to the bitbucket! > > Great idea, but lets take this further. I don't personally like module xyz, > so let's free up pydev and send xyz to the bitbucket because I say so. To > hell with anyone elses' views, and trivial little issues like keeping > backwards compatibility. > > Mark Lawrence. I mostly agree with you, but as Stephen points out you can't exactly count on it being present now either, which more or less renders any guarantee of backwards compatibility moot IMO. Whats the practical difference between telling somebody that either tkinter works out of the box or they'll have to satisfy an extra dependency and just telling them that they'll have to satisfy an additional dependency in the first place? Geremy Condra
From: Stephen Hansen on 10 Jun 2010 18:20 On 6/10/10 2:20 PM, rantingrick wrote: > However, i think you'll also agree that GUI > has been (and continues to be) an ever evolving beast. With many, > many, library's to choose from and nobody can agree that *this* or > *that* GUI library is better. I fail to see how the above statement (which I neither agree nor disagree with; its loaded and there's multiple separate assertions that don't really connect the way you want them to) leads to... > As is evidenced by the lack of development for Tkinter. ... this. I see no logic at all in how somehow this proves the previous claim. Tkinter, the Python wrapper, is not "developed" because it is largely "done". It is an interface to the Tk library, which is indeed developed, and Python does indeed get regular updates to it. That the Python wrapper is not terribly "pythonic", and has an implementation detail of going through TCL: so what? Somehow you think that makes it impure, dirty, lessens Python. It doesn't. The API may not be wonderful, but its not anti-Pythonic, either. Its just sorta 'eh'. > But with Tkinter there is a larger problem, > TclTk! Even Tk is not a full featured GUI library, much is to be > desired. So with all that in mind i ask you again... There is no larger problem except in your mind. The additional dependency of TCL seems no more onerous then the dependency of pywin32, pyobjc, let alone pygtk, and such... and on linux it seems just as likely to be either already present or trivially installed as any of those. And so what, Tk is not a full featured GUI library? Since when did that matter to you? Your entire argument has been for a non-full-featured library. Something simple. You can't go from there then put a black mark against Tkinter for being there already. Tk has a few very powerful features. And a lot of very easy ones. It fulfills a lot of people's needs just fine. For those that it doesn't, well -- they'll soon find wxPython, PyQt, or whatever else is out there these days. > Since GUI's are not as easy to maintain due their inherent fluidity > (unlike other "more static" modules)... and since the process by which > they are maintained is excruciatingly slow... why then include a GUI > at all? Free up pydev and send Tkinter to the bitbucket! But if you > *do* decide to include a GUI, should it not at *least* be based on the > native widgets like PyGUI? I think going native is going to be the > only answer here. When in Rome... Tkinter requires basically little or no maintenance, IIUC. There was a little bit that had to be done in Py2->3, but otherwise-- Martin Leöwis said he just updated the latest libs when he made a new major release. He didn't seem to express it was a major burden. Therefore, your argument that it is somehow a burden fails. With that failing, there's no reason to remove what is already present: key to the stdlib is stability, and stability also means that once something is in, it doesn't go -out- without a -very- good reason: and almost always, a better replacement ready immediately (and with a very clear upgrade path). Consider the recent optparse->argparse discussions on python-dev. Stdlib modules don't get just dumped on a whim. Native widgets are all fine and dandy, to a point. PyGUI is all fine and dandy, and when and if it's ready to do everything Tkinter does, if its dependency situation is more positive then Tkinter's, and it brings some other positives-- a good pythonic API, maybe some other carrots-- then maybe talk of replacing Tkinter is appropriate. As it is, it doesn't seem to me that its there yet. Not that I am deeply familiar with PyGUI, mind you. -- Stephen Hansen ... me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
From: Stephen Hansen on 10 Jun 2010 18:24 On 6/10/10 3:17 PM, geremy condra wrote: > I mostly agree with you, but as Stephen points out you can't exactly > count on it being present now either, which more or less renders any > guarantee of backwards compatibility moot IMO. Whats the practical > difference between telling somebody that either tkinter works out of > the box or they'll have to satisfy an extra dependency and just telling > them that they'll have to satisfy an additional dependency in the first > place? Although that is true in theory, in reality-- In my experience-- You *can* count on it being there, except on Linux distributions which may choose to cut it out into an optional install, and where its also extremely trivial to add back in. For both Mac and Windows, its basically always there. (Unless you go out of your way to uncheck it in the windows installer...) Linux distros may choose to cut up the standard Python library; that's their business if they wanna do it. But they also make it really easy to add back in. -- Stephen Hansen ... me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io P.S. Considering I almost never use tkinter, I'm confused how I somehow suddenly became a Champion of Tkinter Inclusiveness.
From: Mark Roseman on 10 Jun 2010 18:26
rantingrick <rantingrick(a)gmail.com> wrote: > As is evidenced by the lack of > development for Tkinter. But with Tkinter there is a larger problem, > TclTk! Even Tk is not a full featured GUI library Please, enough of this nonsense rant already! :-) Discounting completely and without evidence or reason the considerable amount of volunteer work that continues to go into Tkinter (and Tk) and the people who use both does not help you advance your case. Mark |