python GUIs comparison (want)

[Paul Boddie]

rdsteph at mac.com wrote:
>
> Well, I don't know what I was thinking, exactly, when I rated
> PythonCard's ease of use...so I went back and changed it to rate it a
> lot higher. The ratings in this script were done a long time ago now
> and I need to re-do them, and add some new categories to rate also.
> Maybe this weekend...

I know you're a big advocate of PythonCard, but if it weren't easier to
use than wxPython, then it would surely be hard to justify its
existence.

> I have been thinking about doing a new version of this script that
> allows visitors to the web site to enter their own ratings for each GUI
> toolkit, for each criterion, store them by CGI and calculate a running
> average of the ratings, maybe eliminating the very extreme high and low
> scores to weed out spam, etc. Then, a visitor could use an online
> script with each GUI toolkit rated by the "community" for each
> criterion. I could do the same for Python IDE's, web frameworks, etc.
>
> Still, these would still be toys and not to be taken too seriously, but
> I might do it as a little project nonetheless.

A collaborative scoring application would be interesting and either
amusing or rather useful. It might have uses in other domains, too.

> Concerning GUI toolkits, I find myself coming back to Tkinter these
> days. A lot of Python programs are written using Tkinter. I like to
> fool around with a lot of the old stuff on the web for free,
> miscellaneous apps and such, and there are still more Tkinter GUI's out
> there than anything else.

There's nothing particularly wrong about Tkinter as such, but if I were
doing serious user interface development these days, I'd have a hard
time justifying using Tkinter even though I was once a big fan of the
technology, Pmw and related stuff. Although people may assert that the
Tk scene is still vibrant, the intersection of Tk and Python doesn't
seem to have moved very far, despite Fredrik's efforts: what happened
to Tkinter 3000 or was that a codename for something else? And whilst
things like the Tk canvas were almost revolutionary back in the early
1990s, the momentum just doesn't seem to have been there to produce
similarly revolutionary things in the Tk universe today, at least as
far as I can tell.

> Recently I have been having fun figuring out which new phone to buy. I
> decided to get a smart phone that could run Python. If I lived in
> Europe, or anywhere GSM rules, one of the Nokia series 60 would be a no
> -brainer. But here in the USA, I will probably will wind up getting a
> Windows based model.

I wonder whether we'll see Python plus user interface integration on
this device:

http://www.trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone/index

> Guess what: Folks have Tkinter up and running on Pocket PC's and
> smartphones. I like that. Tkinter is everywhere. Don't forget, the
> Komodo IDE has a Tk based GUI builder.

I guess a decent IDE comparison would make a good resource given the
repetitive "which IDE is best?" threads that appear on
comp.lang.python.

> P.S. There is a 3 hour lecture by Dr. Sergio Rey of San Diego St. U. I
> am putting up as a podcast. He teaches a course in Python in the
> graduate department of Geographical Sciences. Python is heavily used in
> that field of study (as is Tkinter).
>
> The lecture is in 2 parts. Sound quality is excellent. <a
> href="http://www.awaretek.com/python/index.html">Tkinter podcasts</a>

I'm a regular listener of your podcasts, and look forward to many more!

Paul