Defining VCL-like framework for Python

[Tres Seaver]

Graham Matthews wrote:
> 
> Gordon McMillan (gmcm at hypernet.com) wrote:
> : Tk is a GUI toolkit.  You are completely in charge of creating your
> : widgets and making things interact. Complete control, lots of code.
> :
> : A GUI framework is a pre-built skeleton. Much less code (usually):
> : you override this here and that there and if you're lucky, that's all
> : there is to it.
> 
> So how does a framework differ from a GUI toolkit with several abstraction
> layers?

A toolkit is like a box of Legos:  you snap the supplied pieces together as you
see fit, supplying all the "structure" of you app de novo;  a frameword IS that
structure, prebuilt, with pre-defined "hotspots" at which you can plug in
specializations of a set of interfaces defined by the framework.  If the
framework's internal model of the problem domain is appropriate to your
application, you write maybe 10% or less of the code required to implement the
same app using the toolkit;  this is the classic "programming by difference." 
Mismatches between the framework's paradigm and your needs are VERY hard to work
around, however (you can't add unforeseen hotspots to a framework without
hacking into it).

-- 
=========================================================
Tres Seaver         tseaver at palladion.com    713-523-6582
Palladion Software  http://www.palladion.com