Cross-platform from a UI standpoint
on
wxWindows vs. MFC
·
· Score: 1
Writing with a cross-platform GUI is a good idea from the coding standpoint, because it allows you to write the software only once and it will work the same everywhere. But working the same everywhere isn't always what you want...
Consider that when you write a GUI any given platform, you want it to "feel" like it belongs there. Every OS has its own defining characteristics and expected behaviors, and those are an important aspect from the user's standpoint and greatly help the overall consistency of the user's desktop.
For example in your cross-platform GUI, do you use standard Windows key bindings? Mac key bindings? Emacs key bindings? It doesn't matter what you choose, it will be foreign to some percentage of users because it doesn't match their expectations (the OS defaults). The same thing applies to a number of other behaviors (like menu organization, right-mouse-button actions, etc.).
So even if your cross-platform GUI toolkit renders using the native widgets of the platform, it's still not going to "feel" the same as a UI designed specifically for that platform. You may be excited because your app works the same on all platforms, but users won't be excited when it doesn't work quite right on *their* platform.
Get addicted to Xbill and start laughing at people who play FreeCell
Hook up a few more PC's at home so you can have your own little network
Get a cable modem or DSL
Phase II: Linux at work
Install Mandrake Linux on your work PC
Tell the office computer support people to "Get lost, you Microsoft Weenies"
Get addicted to using office bandwidth to access Napster
Figure out how to rip CD's into MP3's, and how to burn CD's full of MP3's to share with your friends using the office CD burner.
Phase III: Linux users group
Join the local Linux Users Group
If one does not exist, start your own and name yourself Benevolent Dictator for Life
Post to the list using several psuedonyms from different accounts to get discussion started.
Ask obscure questions to which you already know the answer. Answer them eloquently using another account without asking yourself to clarify the issue or send copies of config files.
Phase IV: Become 31337
Become 31337 by spending 6 hours every night on IRC under the handle "D4r7h H4x0r"
Set up your own 31337 FTP site on a spare machine at work
Tell everyone on IRC how 31337 you are and give them guest access to your FTP site
Appropriate more disks to increase the size of your 31337 FTP site
Appropriate more hardware to set up new systems to run streaming MP3 servers, web servers, and your own local mirror of the Linux kernel
Phase V: Prosecution
Get visited by the local authorities and/or the FBI for trafficking pr0n
Realize the value of doing a quick trace on new arrivals to your IRC channel to find out that "GoodCop" and "UnderCoverAgent" are connecting from.statepolice.ca.us and.fbi.gov respectively
Realize the value of cryptography when the lack of it allows the FBI to access all your data and form an airtight case against you
Plead to the judge to at least put you in a prison that has internet access
Phase VI: Sysadmin
Explain to the warden how your past experience makes you the right man to run the prison's Unix systems.
Get the job as prison Sysadmin and realize you're in charge of a few ancient Sun workstations running SunOS 2.4, an IBM server running AIX, and a web server running some variant of HPUX
Rejoyce at your good fortune of finally becoming a Unix sysadmin
Screenshots can provide a quick measure of a project's interface and status. For example, I was looking for a file manager today, something like Midnight Commander, but improved. The first thing I did was check screenshots, and immediately I discovered many of the programs were obviously not what I wanted. Others had screenshots that were close, so I checked them out. After reading a bit, I tried getting a few to work.
Precompiled binaries come in handy here, as a lot of "under development" software doesn't compile readily under systems where, for example, header files are in a different location. Also, for large projects like Mozilla or XFree86, if it doesn't have binaries, life is a pain. Just untarring Mozilla takes many minutes, let alone trying to compile it...
Once you get something running, or at least can take a look at it from a screen shot, you can form your opinion as to whether or not to help the project. Unless you are a real die-hard coder, if it doesn't appear that the project has promise (based on it actually running, looking OK, etc.), chances are you're not going to help.
Long story short, screenshots and binaries make it a lot easier to find the software you want, and thus be interested in helping out the project.
The documents herein, filed as patent number #TBB with the USPTO, describe a system for creating matter out of nothing, space where there was none before, and indeed an entire universe. Dubbed by scientists as "The Big Bang", this process created the very universe in which you now exist.
Our lawyers will be in contact with you soon regarding royalty payments for your existance. Thank you.
NEWT (RH and others use it) - has bindings for C at least, maybe other languages
CDK (Curses Development Kit) - has bindings for Perl and C if I remember correctly, requires ncurses I believe
(N)Curses - which you already mentioned
dialog/whiptail/etc. - allow you to pop up interactive windows from a command line, returns results to stdout I think. IIRC, NEWT comes with whiptail?
SLang - has some embedded screen control stuff, not sure about bindings or anything else
I'm also interested in doing text-mode UI stuff with Python, so if you find a good windowing/menuing/text-displaying/etc. solution to use with Python, I'd be happy to know about it (post here I guess).
FYI, Mr. Wagner, the third grade teacher, has been teaching about Nikola Tesla for probably a good twenty years now, at least since before I was in third grade 16 years ago. I know, because I went to the elementary school where he has been teaching, and my younger sister was in his class. He has had a positive impact on practically all of his students.
I've read a few of the comments posted, and several people seem to think what he's doing is wrong. Do you think the school board would let him continue this for 20 years if it was harmful to his students? Yes, he is very passionate about it, and he's a very energetic teacher in general, something that so many teachers and professors these days lack.
Also, I saw a post from someone talking about Tesla the rock band. If I remember right, they did a concert in the school gymnasium many years ago.;)
Some points they made and my responses to them (MS: for things in the windows column, Linux: for stuff in that column):
MS: "GUI-based tools" It seems having a powerful,flexible command line interface is a weakness. Hmm.. That's news to me.
and along the same line: MS: "Wizards to simplify complicated tasks" and complicate simple tasks...
MS: Binary backwards compatability, but at what cost? Some would consider that a weakness in Windows, as it requires large quantities of legacy 16bit code.
another similarity: MS: "Extensive internal and external beta testing to ensure binary compatibility across services and applications" Except when you change memory allocation routines between SP3 and SP4, causing many programs to cease to function... (This should also be in the "binary compatability" section)
MS: 99.9% uptime guarantee. Lets see, how many Linux boxen have I seen stay up for months/years on end, only requiring a reboot because of power failure or hardware/kernel upgrades? Even on cheap 486 parts. Sounds reliable to me...
MS: Support for the latest hardware. It helps if hardware vendors like you and write drivers for you or at least give you the technical info you need to write them yourself...
MS: "160k MSCE's". Um, OK. I work with a guy that is Microsoft Certified and let me just say that if he can get it, anybody can.
MS: Scriptable administration on NT? And Linux has no scripting capabilities? I thought we had sh/csh/ksh, perl, python, tcl/tk, and numerous other script languages that can be used to administer Linux boxen...
MS: "OS services and applications designed to integrated and work together" besides the incorrect grammar, it helps if you write the OS and distribute large quantities of software for it yourself. Nobody can do a better job of integrating with your software than you can.
MS: "Clear longterm roadmap based on a customer focused vision". My vision isn't focused on having to buy a new computer when Windows 2000 comes out because my brand new 333mhz box isn't fast enough...
Linux:"No application framework for developing distributed or Web-based applications" Hmm, Apache, PHP3, PERL, python. Seems you could make quite a few nice web based applications from those...
MS: "End users forced to integrate (i.e., Web server, database, application authentication)" I look at it more like, "Linux users NOT forced to use the entire pre-packaged 'world domination' software kit. I run Apache because I chose it, not because it came with my operating system...
Took a while to write this, so if someone else said the same thing while I typed, oh well... =)
Slashdot Mirror
Writing with a cross-platform GUI is a good idea from the coding standpoint, because it allows you to write the software only once and it will work the same everywhere. But working the same everywhere isn't always what you want...
Consider that when you write a GUI any given platform, you want it to "feel" like it belongs there. Every OS has its own defining characteristics and expected behaviors, and those are an important aspect from the user's standpoint and greatly help the overall consistency of the user's desktop.
For example in your cross-platform GUI, do you use standard Windows key bindings? Mac key bindings? Emacs key bindings? It doesn't matter what you choose, it will be foreign to some percentage of users because it doesn't match their expectations (the OS defaults). The same thing applies to a number of other behaviors (like menu organization, right-mouse-button actions, etc.).
So even if your cross-platform GUI toolkit renders using the native widgets of the platform, it's still not going to "feel" the same as a UI designed specifically for that platform. You may be excited because your app works the same on all platforms, but users won't be excited when it doesn't work quite right on *their* platform.
Phase I: Linux at home
Phase II: Linux at work
Phase III: Linux users group
Phase IV: Become 31337
Phase V: Prosecution
Phase VI: Sysadmin
Screenshots can provide a quick measure of a project's interface and status. For example, I was looking for a file manager today, something like Midnight Commander, but improved. The first thing I did was check screenshots, and immediately I discovered many of the programs were obviously not what I wanted. Others had screenshots that were close, so I checked them out. After reading a bit, I tried getting a few to work.
Precompiled binaries come in handy here, as a lot of "under development" software doesn't compile readily under systems where, for example, header files are in a different location. Also, for large projects like Mozilla or XFree86, if it doesn't have binaries, life is a pain. Just untarring Mozilla takes many minutes, let alone trying to compile it...
Once you get something running, or at least can take a look at it from a screen shot, you can form your opinion as to whether or not to help the project. Unless you are a real die-hard coder, if it doesn't appear that the project has promise (based on it actually running, looking OK, etc.), chances are you're not going to help.
Long story short, screenshots and binaries make it a lot easier to find the software you want, and thus be interested in helping out the project.
The documents herein, filed as patent number #TBB with the USPTO, describe a system for creating matter out of nothing, space where there was none before, and indeed an entire universe. Dubbed by scientists as "The Big Bang", this process created the very universe in which you now exist.
Our lawyers will be in contact with you soon regarding royalty payments for your existance. Thank you.
-- The Management
Some alternatives to X11 that I've come across:
D11 - Proposed replacement for X11 (from 1995), but I don't think it made it past the idea/proposal stage.
Berlin - Under development, "Latest News: June 12, 2000: 0.2 is out".
See also: Berlin page at Sourceforge
NEWT (RH and others use it) - has bindings for C at least, maybe other languages
CDK (Curses Development Kit) - has bindings for Perl and C if I remember correctly, requires ncurses I believe
(N)Curses - which you already mentioned
dialog/whiptail/etc. - allow you to pop up interactive windows from a command line, returns results to stdout I think. IIRC, NEWT comes with whiptail?
SLang - has some embedded screen control stuff, not sure about bindings or anything else
I'm also interested in doing text-mode UI stuff with Python, so if you find a good windowing/menuing/text-displaying/etc. solution to use with Python, I'd be happy to know about it (post here I guess).
FYI, Mr. Wagner, the third grade teacher, has been teaching about Nikola Tesla for probably a good twenty years now, at least since before I was in third grade 16 years ago. I know, because I went to the elementary school where he has been teaching, and my younger sister was in his class. He has had a positive impact on practically all of his students.
;)
I've read a few of the comments posted, and several people seem to think what he's doing is wrong. Do you think the school board would let him continue this for 20 years if it was harmful to his students? Yes, he is very passionate about it, and he's a very energetic teacher in general, something that so many teachers and professors these days lack.
Also, I saw a post from someone talking about Tesla the rock band. If I remember right, they did a concert in the school gymnasium many years ago.
Some points they made and my responses to them (MS: for things in the windows column, Linux: for stuff in that column):
MS: "GUI-based tools" It seems having a powerful,flexible command line interface is a weakness. Hmm.. That's news to me.
and along the same line:
MS: "Wizards to simplify complicated tasks" and complicate simple tasks...
MS: Binary backwards compatability, but at what cost? Some would consider that a weakness in Windows, as it requires large quantities of legacy 16bit code.
another similarity:
MS: "Extensive internal and external beta testing to ensure binary compatibility across services and applications" Except when you change memory allocation routines between SP3 and SP4, causing many programs to cease to function... (This should also be in the "binary compatability" section)
MS: 99.9% uptime guarantee. Lets see, how many Linux boxen have I seen stay up for months/years on end, only requiring a reboot because of power failure or hardware/kernel upgrades? Even on cheap 486 parts. Sounds reliable to me...
MS: Support for the latest hardware. It helps if hardware vendors like you and write drivers for you or at least give you the technical info you need to write them yourself...
MS: "160k MSCE's". Um, OK. I work with a guy that is Microsoft Certified and let me just say that if he can get it, anybody can.
MS: Scriptable administration on NT? And Linux has no scripting capabilities? I thought we had sh/csh/ksh, perl, python, tcl/tk, and numerous other script languages that can be used to administer Linux boxen...
MS: "OS services and applications designed to integrated and work together" besides the incorrect grammar, it helps if you write the OS and distribute large quantities of software for it yourself. Nobody can do a better job of integrating with your software than you can.
MS: "Clear longterm roadmap based on a customer focused vision". My vision isn't focused on having to buy a new computer when Windows 2000 comes out because my brand new 333mhz box isn't fast enough...
Linux:"No application framework for developing distributed or Web-based applications" Hmm, Apache, PHP3, PERL, python. Seems you could make quite a few nice web based applications from those...
MS: "End users forced to integrate (i.e., Web server, database, application authentication)" I look at it more like, "Linux users NOT forced to use the entire pre-packaged 'world domination' software kit. I run Apache because I chose it, not because it came with my operating system...
Took a while to write this, so if someone else said the same thing while I typed, oh well... =)