WxPython versus Tkinter.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 12:23:13 -0800, rantingrick wrote:

> I am not
> trying to create a working file browser so you can steal my code.

Dammit! There goes my brilliant idea for getting rich.

Step 1: Start company.
Step 2: Steal working file browser from Internet.
Step 4: Profit!



I think rantingrick's comment inadvertently shows in a nutshell 
everything wrong with this thread and why there is so little interest in 
his proposal. If RR is right about the GUI toolkit making or breaking the 
entire Python community, there should be hundreds of people with an 
opinion, not just a handful.

(1) rantingrick is willing to spend *hours* brow-beating people, 
insulting them, and cajoling them into doing things *his* way, supposedly 
because of his deep concern for the Python community, but isn't willing 
to donate a lousy *file browser* to the community.

(2) GUI programming is TOO DAMN HARD, and until that fact is addressed, 
it's difficult for the majority of people to care whether the toolkit 
used (or, more likely, not used at all) is Tkinter, or wxPython, or 
something else.

For something as common as displaying a file browser, it should be as 
simple as this:

import gui_toolkit  # whichever
path = gui_toolkit.select_file()

Something like zenity:

[steve at sylar ~]$ zenity --file-selection
/home/steve/python/findsingle.py


Of course there are times when you need to do more complicated things, 
and a decent toolkit should allow you to do so. But simple things should 
be simple, and as far as I can see, there are no GUI toolkits that make 
*anything* simple.


-- 
Steven