python GUIs comparison (want)

[David Boddie]

On Friday 27 October 2006 16:36, Magnus Lycka wrote:
> David Boddie wrote:
>> You're forgetting that Qt isn't just a widget toolkit.
> 
> I suspect that the non-GUI parts are (just like in Wx) C++ stuff
> which is more or less equivalent with things that are either Python
> builtins or parts of Python's standard library. Besides, getting
> those proprietary dependencies even further down into the code than
> the GUI is not a plus in my book.

It depends on who you are. If you're writing GPL applications, whether
you use framework-specific classes for SQL, XML or networking (for
example) is more a question of making appropriate design choices.
If you're writing proprietary closed source applications, you're
probably paying for the benefits those dependencies bring.

One of the advantage of using Qt from Python is that you get a choice
of dependencies.

> Last time I looked, Qt code wasn't even pure C++ but needed some
> preprocessing like embedded SQL. Yet another programming language
> in other words. I suppose I can ignore that from Python, but it
> still smells...

You're referring to the meta-object compiler, I suppose. This has
been discussed many times by people who don't have the luxury of
being able to write all their code in Python; for example:

http://doc.trolltech.com/4.2/templates.html
http://www.scottcollins.net/articles/a-deeper-look-at-signals-and-slots.html

It's a trade off that some people choose to make to take advantage
of those features. Of course, Python has a perfectly good type
system, so you never need to preprocess Python code when you use PyQt.

David