wxEmbedded Beta Released

An anonymous reader writes "Robert Roebling has announced the first beta release of wxEmbedded, a new open source graphical windowing environment for small devices. Here is a brief overview from Roebling about wxEmbedded, along with some background on the wxWindows project from which wxEmbedded is derived."

Comments

WxWindows

[Pac]

WxWindows is one of the most magnificent development projects in existence and the fact we hear so little about it is shame upon the technological press in general and the open source information resources in particular.

WxWindows has for years fullfilled the Java promisse in C++: write once, compile and run anywhere, natively. Their approach to the cross-platform problem was always far superior than the Java approach. And I really don't care about recompilation, machines compile code, not me.

Their main public relations problem seems to be the use of an adult language, C++. Yes there are pointers (scaring, isn't it, a type that holds a memory address), there are templates (mostly scary, trully generic containers) and your program interface looks like everything else in the operating system it is running (ludicrous).

And yet, more than nine years later those guys are still there giving the community such a tool. Trully amazing.

Re:WxWindows

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes there are pointers (scaring, isn't it, a type that holds a memory address)
>>>>>

It's not that they're scary; it's that you can't have them if you want to do garbage collection right.

Re:WxWindows

[Jason Earl]

Their main public relations problem seems to be the use of an adult language, C++.

That's the beauty of wxPython. All the cross platform goodness of wxWindows, and the development speed and ease of Python.

Maybe refine your definitions a bit.

[Inoshiro]

You consider an adult language one that (potentially) requires that programmers be mindful of things. This may be an "adult" language, but overall I'm more motivated to work within a language like C# or Java, for the same reason I'd work in C++ or Scheme over C (or C over assembler): higher level constructs take away my micromanaging of bits of the machine, allowing me to focus more on the structure of the problem I'm modelling and working with.

Yes, it's great that pointers put hair on your chest, and that C++ is where Real Men get their rocks off, but don't write off other languages for this reason. It's like writting off French or Japanese because, "English is good enough."

Point taken, minimal apology and other tidbits

[Pac]

I was not writing other languages off. As a matter of fact (and market) I am today a Java programmer.

I should perhaps apologise for being too vague. I consider Java a good language, too. I also consider Python a good language (and Zope is a pretty nice tool). I also like some other languages I will not mention to protect myself from a language flame war (both for quoting or failing to quote something).

My point was more addressed to all the criticism (some of it deserved, most just a nod from language developers and the tech press to mental lazyness) C++ received for being too complex, too big, too low level etc, during the recent years. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I still belive in Knuth's harsh words about the supposed difficulties of learning his book's fictional Assembler - I just don't think someone who calls him/herself a programmer have any excuse for being unable to learn and use any language (OK, except Forth - you have to be a Budhist Martian to like Forth).

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Pointers are like women

[alyosha1]

I would claim that _destructors_ are the single biggest advantage C++ has over Java, C#, perl, python and the rest
Absolutely. A function (destructor) that is guaranteed to be called at some point after another function (constructor) has been called, even if an exception is thrown in between, is incredibly useful. While there are a number of powerful resource managment techniques in c++ (see for example the smart pointer classes over at boost, for me the approach of 'Resource Aquisition Is Initialisation' has proven to be very effective in avoiding headaches with with memory leaks (or database handle leaks, or file handle leaks, or ....)