Re: [Edu-sig] Learn to Program in Ten Years
In a message of Sun, 26 Dec 2004 14:24:47 PST, "Kirby Urner" writes:
At the OSCONs I've managed to attend (2003, 2004), wxPython attracted a high degree of interest and attendance. We've seen some exciting completed works making use of it. I've not seen similar enthusiasm for pyGTK. This might be the big-fish-in-a-small-pond syndrome, but, as I mentioned, I'm not ready to form a judgment along those lines.
While you are preparing judgements -- both wxPython and The Gnome Desktop, hence the GIMP, GTK and PyGTK are more popular in North America than they are in Europe. We are vastly more likely to use KDE than Gnome. wxWindows is not all that popular here: I am trying to think of a single site that uses is, and coming up empty. But I can think of 10 QT sites off the top of my head. Anecdotal for sure, but I don't think I am useless as a barometer of local popular sentiment. Which reminds me. Nearly everbody I know wants a Mac for Christmas. So perhaps we are only numerating the dinosaurs here. Laura
On Sun, 2004-12-26 at 23:50 +0100, Laura Creighton wrote:
Which reminds me. Nearly everbody I know wants a Mac for Christmas. So perhaps we are only numerating the dinosaurs here.
I actually got myself - or am getting myself - a MAC for Christmas. Actually as hand-me-down from a friend who bought his wife a new one for Christmas. The same friend who, BTW, advised be to buy Apple when it was selling at 15. I didn't listen, of course. And he can afford to buy his wife a new MAC for Christmas. He thinks it (the stock) is still a good buy. It will be nice if the world comes down to a choice between KDE and Gnome. I know that ubuntu is moving toward making available a KDE desktop as an alternative, within their framework. As to wxPython, I'm afraid it just failed a test of some importance to me. VPython does not run interactively from PyShell or PyCrust. It just hangs. It does run interactively from the native prompt and from the Idle prompt. Kirby: I don't know it Patrick listens in here anymomre. You might want to make the wxPython-dev folks aware of this issue. I wonder if it related to the fact that wxPython *is* running over GTK and VPython is a GTK window. Anywhere it's a bit disappointing. Art
As to wxPython, I'm afraid it just failed a test of some importance to me. VPython does not run interactively from PyShell or PyCrust. It just hangs. It does run interactively from the native prompt and from the Idle prompt.
Hence my cc to the wxpython dev list, mentioning VPython, and the "would be nice" prospect of integrating it more effectively.
Kirby:
I don't know it Patrick listens in here anymomre. You might want to make the wxPython-dev folks aware of this issue. I wonder if it related to the fact that wxPython *is* running over GTK and VPython is a GTK window. Anywhere it's a bit disappointing.
Art
Probably it's a deeper issue than Patrick tweaking his shell, which sits on top of the wx library. I think getting VPython to show up in a wxWidget (a window), and having mouse clicks go from VPython objects to the wx event loop somehow, would require a lot of digging, a lot of legwork. Or maybe the goal isn't to handle VPython window events (let VPython handle its own events), but merely to support the orderly creation and destruction of a VPython window, plus an ability to send wx events *into* VPython via its native API (e.g. press a button on a wx frame, and watch every sphere in a VPython window turn blue -- or we could have zoom-in/zoom-out buttons). I don't have the expertise to code these things. However, the fact that Vpython runs on Windows, Mac and Linux would make it philosophically consistent with the wxWidgets aim. I can well imagine a VPython demo, right near the OpenGL demo. I don't know if the right way to handle integration with VPython is at the C++ level, within wx, or at the wxPython level, or both. All I know is Pygeo on wxPython would probably be really cool, interface-wise. And keeping the VPython asset, vs. trying to redo it all in OpenGL, would likely save many coder-years of time. Kirby
While you are preparing judgements -- both wxPython and The Gnome Desktop, hence the GIMP, GTK and PyGTK are more popular in North America than they are in Europe. We are vastly more likely to use KDE than Gnome. wxWindows is not all that popular here: I am trying to think of a single site that uses is, and coming up empty. But I can think of 10 QT sites off the top of my head. Anecdotal for sure, but I don't think I am useless
as a barometer of local popular sentiment.
Hey Laura, thanks for sharing that perspective. I'm a KDE user myself these days though I use Gnome at a certain police station. When I did a Needs Assessment for Meyer Memorial, a very large and active charitable trust here in PDX, it came down to Qt and wx as the two most promising platforms for GUI coders who want to use Python. Meyer is an OS X shop, so the ability of both of these to comply with Aqua's user interface standards was an important consideration. Qt currently has license restrictions for the Windows developer. Plus it wasn't clear that Meyer really wanted or needed to underwrite code that'd work on all three platforms, which both of these technologies aim to provide (I left that decision to them -- my job, as I saw it, was to spell out alternatives, not to make all the key decisions for them (the consequences of their decision-making should be theirs, not Free Geek's)). If Python isn't your thing, then of course the playing field opens to other candidates. Java for example. Or, if you're just going to write for OS X, there's always using Cocoa directly. The wx community struggles mightily to force GTK on Linux to comply with all the specs, even while it goes with Carbon on OS X and the win32 GUI API on Windows. It tries to run on both Classic Mac and multiple versions of Windows (with widely varying levels of Unicode support). It's a huge undertaking.
Which reminds me. Nearly everbody I know wants a Mac for Christmas. So perhaps we are only numerating the dinosaurs here.
Laura
Apple continues to be out of reach for a lot of us. That we have a robust and powerful free Linux available, that runs on recycled Wintel, is what keeps us in the game. I don't think this will change very soon. Plus I'm *glad* that Wintel boxes have value after they've been fully amortized in the Windows world. From a Free Geek standpoint, that keeps the barrier to entry very low (just give us some time, and we'll give you training and a Pentium Freekbox running Debian). Kirby
On Sun, 2004-12-26 at 23:50 +0100, Laura Creighton wrote:
While you are preparing judgements -- both wxPython and The Gnome Desktop, hence the GIMP, GTK and PyGTK are more popular in North America than they are in Europe. We are vastly more likely to use KDE than Gnome. wxWindows is not all that popular here: I am trying to think of a single site that uses is, and coming up empty. But I can think of 10 QT sites off the top of my head. Anecdotal for sure, but I don't think I am useless as a barometer of local popular sentiment.
Novell seems to read the same barometer: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1679393,00.asp Taking the same tact as ubuntu, offering either and supporting both. Wonder what determines one's taste here. My preference for Gnome is a strong one. I think it was KDE and efforts at mixed and mixed-up KDE/Gnome efforts that kept me away from the Linux desktop for some time. ubuntu's clean Gnome/GTK got me excited again. Art
participants (3)
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Arthur -
Kirby Urner -
Laura Creighton