GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[Lie Ryan]

On 06/09/10 01:17, bart.c wrote:
> 
> "Grant Edwards" <invalid at invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:hullf3$hl4$1 at reader1.panix.com...
>> On 2010-06-08, Kevin Walzer <kw at codebykevin.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Since Tk already provides a basic GUI toolset, and Python can interface
>>> with it more directly than it can with other toolkits
>>> (PyGui -> PyGtk -> Gtk -> Xlib),
>>
>> Compare that to this:
>>
>> TkInter -> Tcl -> Tk -> Xlib
> 
> Is the Tcl intepreter really need to use this GUI? Why not:
> 
> (Pyton ->) Tkinter-API -> Xlib ?
> 
> Most of the work of designing a GUI is, well, designing it. That's
> already been done for Tkinter so why not just implement the same spec in
> Python (with whatever lower-level code is needed). Then extending it
> should be simpler.
> 
>>> it's not clear to me what is gained by starting from scratch here.
>>> (Is it the presence of the Tcl interpreter? I know Tcl is not to
>>> everyone's taste, but it is an amazing language...)
> 
> Some people aren't interested in the amazing language. Only the graphics
> API that goes with it.

How about shifting the viewpoint a little bit. Tcl is like regular
expression engine and the Tk is like the re API.

Much like regex a DSL for matching text, Tcl/Tk is pretty much a DSL for
creating GUI (anyone knows any real program fully written in
non-embedded Tcl?).

Nobody complains that python included a regular expression engine in its
standard distribution; so why complain that python included a Tcl
expression engine in its standard distribution.