GUIs - A Modest Proposal

geremy condra debatem1 at gmail.com
Sun Jun 6 19:16:04 EDT 2010


On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 3:55 PM, ant <shimbo at uklinux.net> wrote:
> 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.

I take it you're volunteering?

Geremy Condra



More information about the Python-list mailing list