Tkinter: The good, the bad, and the ugly!

[Octavian Rasnita]

From: "Arndt Roger Schneider" <arndt.roger at addcom.de>
>
> Overall impression:
> The software was designed for windows; more or less
> following the windows hci-guidelines,
> The windows version is resonable good.


This is the most important thing, because most users use Windows. Those who 
have other preferences are not forced to choose Windows, so it's their 
choice, and if the interface doesn't look so nice, that's it.

> Back to rantingrick 21st century toolkit/framwork:
> Let's have a look at the numbers:
> Worlwide pc market are 300 Million pcs per year,
> this number includes desktops(2/3) and servers(1/3).
> Your gui app is not relevant on servers.
> Quite a good deal of the remaining pc's are sold in
> countries with rampant ilict software copies;
> Since there are no software cost for these copies

Python is an open source software and the programmers that use Python might 
also prefer to offer open source software for free so this is not important. 
And "not legal" is not a very correct term, because somebody from Iran or 
North Corea must respect the laws from his/her country and in her/his 
country some things might not be forbidden by law, so it may be perfectly 
legal.

> ~ 100 Million potential new desktop users for you.
>
> Apple's projection for the ipad in 2011 are 65 Million pieces,
> iphone and ipod touch will be roughly the same.
> 130 Million ios pieces.
> The android market is still unclear, but I do suppose
> it will rival ios, lets say 100 Million in 2011.
>
> ~ 100 Million new android users for you.
>
>
> Microsoft mobile and blueberry are wildcards;
> no serious forecast is possible for these devices.
> Lets assume:
>
> ~ 50 Million blueberry, windows mobile.
>
> Total is: 380 Million potential new user for your application.
>
>
> wxWidgets: 36000000 LOC, python: 1400000 LOC
> --these are very old numbers, but from the same time period.

This is a bad comparison because the programs targetted to the mobile phones 
are in most cases very different than the programs that need to be used on 
the desktop.
Do you want to say that WxPython is not good just because it doesn't work 
well on mobile phones?
Those numbers show that only the mobile phones are important, because there 
are more mobile phones than computers.

Well, Python needs a better GUI lib for using them on desktop computers, not 
on mobile phones.

> The desktop pc market is in decline; there is
> however a shift toward pc-servers, instead.

What do you mean by declining? Are there fewer desktop PCs today than a year 
ago?

> Looking into wxWidgets:
> Interactivity: keyboard focus, shortcuts, function keys,
>   active foreground, active background are obsolete.
>   hovering tooltips obsolete, status bar to large, obsolete.
>   scrolled dialogs, obsolete. OK, Cancel, Retry, Abort
>   buttons, obsolete, file dialogs obsolete, old style printing
>   obsolete, drag-and-drop obsolete...

Who says that they are obsolete?
A good GUI interface should offer keyboard accessibility. Otherwise it is 
broken.

> Summary wxWidgets:
> wxWidgets is large scale C++ library from the 20th century,
> solemnly dedicated toward desktop computers.


Yes, Python should promote a good GUI lib for desktop computers, and not a 
poor GUI lib for desktop computers that might also work on other platforms.

> wxWidgets is not suitable for a modern type
> GUI ad thus clearly not the toolkit/framework
> of the 21st century.

Why do you think that everything what's modern is better?

Octavian