GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[ant]

On Jun 6, 2:22 pm, ant <shi... at uklinux.net> wrote:
> I get the strong feeling that nobody is really happy with the state of
> Python GUIs.
<snip...>

What an interesting set of responses I got!
And - even more interesting - how few of them actually seem to think
there is a problem, let
alone make any attempt to move the situation forward.
I appreciate that there are proponents of many different GUIs. I am
asking that all step back
from their particular interests and - for example - try to see the
situation from the viewpoint of
- say - a Python newbie, or an organisation that is thinking of
switching from (example only!) Visual Basic.

I obviously didn't make my main point clearly enough; I'll restate it
with a different emphasis:
The default GUI shipped with Python is Tkinter.
Few people seem to like it much. This has several consequences.
- It has not blossomed, like Python has.
- There are not hundreds of talented programmers making rapid and
impressive improvements to it.
- Books about Python use it in examples (because it IS the default),
but imply that one should move on.

The result that our hypothetical new recruit has to make a choice for
the new, big project. Remember that
GUIs have hundreds (sometimes thousands) of classes, functions and
constants. Let alone idioms and design
patterns. That is what I meant by 'Our resources are being
dissipated'; the effort of learning, remembering
and relearning a workable subset of these is substantial.
So it would be good to be able to use One Right Way, not try several
(as I have - I will admit I didn't try PyQt;
GUI fatigue was setting in by then).

If we are to make progress, I can see two obvious approaches:
1) Improve Tkinter to the point where it is supportable and supported
by a good fraction of Python programmers
or
2) Drop Tkinter as the default and use something else.

If we choose 2) then we have a new set of possibilities:
2a) Use one of the 'major' GUIs, pretty much as is, but presumably
with a lot more people supporting it if it is the default.
2b) Use one of the 'minor' GUIs, and get a lot of people working on it
to make it really good.
2c) Start from scratch. With a project supported by the Community as a
whole, with the agreed objective of being the default.

None of these is easy. All require strong leadership and great
committment.

What surprises me is the apparent willingness of the Python community
to let this issue slide.
I can see that many people have committed to one GUI and want to use
that forever. Fair enough. For the reasons I stated
originally, I've not found one. I think a lot of people deep down are
uneasy about this.

My concern is simple: I think that Python is doomed to remain a minor
language unless we crack this problem.