GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[Carl Banks]

On Jun 5, 7:22 pm, ant <shi... at uklinux.net> wrote:
> I get the strong feeling that nobody is really happy with the state of
> Python GUIs.
> Tkinter is not widely liked, but is widely distributed. WxPython and
> PyGtk are both
> powerful, but quirky in different ways. PyQt is tied to one platform.
> And there are
> dozens more.
>
> Whether or not we like graphics programming, it's not going to go
> away. I get the
> uneasy feeling whenever I start a new project that there should be a
> 'better' GUI
> than the ones I currently use (WxPython and PyGtk).
>
> Fragmentation is our enemy. Our resources are being dissipated. Is it
> not time to
> start again? We have shown that it is possible to do the right thing,
> by creating Python3.
>
> I ask the group; should we try to create a new GUI for Python, with
> the following
> properties?:
>
> - Pythonic
> - The default GUI (so it replaces Tkinter)
> - It has the support of the majority of the Python community
> - Simple and obvious to use for simple things
> - Comprehensive, for complicated things
> - Cross-platform
> - Looks good (to be defined)
> - As small as possible in its default form
>
> If so, what are the next steps?
>
> The Python SIG on GUIs closed years ago. Should that be revived?
>
> This is "A Modest Proposal" (J. Swift). In a sense, I am suggesting
> that
> we eat our own babies.
>
> But don't we owe it to the community?

Speaking for myself, PySide has resolved this issue for me.  I used
PyQt for some things but didn't want to use it for everything because
of the license, but I'd be ok to use PySide for anything.  It's
portable to the major systems and generally better (IMHO) than the
other toolkits.


Carl Banks