While we are handing out credit for the victory in WW2, let's not forget about our friends, the Russians. The Russians fought the brunt of the German war machine, and wore them down through sheer attrition...
...and succeeded where Germans have failed - managed to occupy quite a chunk of Europe for half a century.
Make sure to never refer to the Russians as Good Guys of WW2 in places where Eastern Europeans might hear you.
"Linux the Operating System" as in "Windows the Oparating System". I like consistency, you know. But that's offtopic...
the X11 window system has clipboard
No, it does not. According to my (and Windows) definition - clipboard is desktop-wide app-independent buffer. Here i'll say it again, this time pay attention to the boldface:
You can't: open a doc in a viewer, mark and copy some text, close a viewer, paste the text to an editor.
I am aware of projects that are working to remedy this... so hopefully Linux will finally get that clipboard thing pretty soon now.
Copying/pasting text with the mouse is far simpler in X (and in KDE, specifically) than in Windows.
Read my original post and/or the subject. I don't care about "better". I want consistency.
The Win-key is by default configured to be a modifier in X. I am quite sure that this can be reconfigured to be a normal key, in which case you can then configure it to be the Panel Menu key.
As a mostly Windows user i'm not interested in wasting my time searching for various KSteps, or digging under the X11's hood to get something as ubiquitous in a PC world as Windows L&F. Gimme a single chechbox to click to get that L&F. Better yet - make sure it's on by default, or show a suggestion to switch it on during the first user logon - so that Windows "grandmas" and "morons" won't have to look for it.
Tough:)
There should be a commintment from desktop (and app) makers to offer Windows L&F as an option. If you are serious about luring Windows masses to Linux, make sure that the first thing they see on "GNOME Usability Project" and "KDE Usability Project" web sites is something like this: "Yes there is Windows Look an Feel just for You!" Of course i've heard that some Linux geeks do not actually want the "unwashed Windows masses" to invade their territory - and that probably is the root of the problem.
In any case, if the window decoration looks a bit differently, or if a couple of keys are mapped a little differently, it is really not a thwart to producitivity.
It's a severe annoyance. If you are switching between those two desktops several times a day that is.
Bells and whistles are irrelevant. I need usage patterns to be the same.
1. Linux does not have a clipboard. E.g. you can't: open a doc in a viewer, mark and copy some text, close a viewer, paste the text to an editor.
2. I can't close a window just by moving mouse cursor to the upper right corner of a desktop and left-clicking. Linux forces me to aim to the close button accurately.
3. Win-key (lets just call it the Flag Key if touching anything labeled "Win" is a taboo in Linuxland;-) ) doesn't show a "Start" menu.
KDE stuff is not enough for me. So GNOME stuff should offer an optional Windows L&F as well.
I have to say that I think the folks who are all over the deficiencies of the Linux Desktop, and how we have to emulate the Windows/Mac/BeOS/Xbox/Sinclair/whatever desktop experience to have a usable desktop are mistaken. I think they underestimate the ability of users to adapt, and overestimate the degree to which familiar = better.
I'm stuck with two operating systems (Windows and Linux). And i think things are going to be this way for a very long time.
I want to get consistency among the two desktops. And i see only two ways for this to happen: 1. MS implements an optional Linux L&F on Windows, 2. Linux crowd implements an optional Windows L&F on Linux.
I'm sure you know which one of these two options is more likely to happen.
And i don't care about getting a perfect UI. Consistency is of a higer importance to me (and Windows desktop L&F is pretty good anyway).
I imagine almost every language has redundancy in it's alphabet.
Some silly redundancy? Yes. But the amount of it in English is just crazy in comparison to the other two languages i know (lt and ru).
I think a little bit of history is not out of place in lanuages. English was strongly affected by Latin (the alphabet for a start!) so why not keep a couple of Latin abbreviations in. i.e. and e.g. are not hard to remember once you learn them and given their (incredibly) common use.
I think it's bad when history stands in a way of logic and convenience. I just wanted to point out that wasting time learning some extra quirk of a language is a negative rather than positive thing. If i want to abbreviate "for example" i'm incilned to write it as "f.e." and that's it. One more example of such an annoyance is a.m./p.m.
Finally, I (Je/Ich/whatever) is pretty much the most important concept in a lanuage as it is one of the most frequently used words. So I don't see having it capitalised as being that odd...
Just for a record: neither lt nor ru capitalize "I".
Anyway this "I" and "e.g." thing is pretty irrelevant in contrast to the spelling madness.
Esperanto was interesting and look where it got. Nowhere. People will speak in what's easiest.
Wrong.
People learn those languages that make the biggest amount of valuable information available to them.
English is my third language by acquisition while clearly the first one in terms of importance now.
And i find it to be the weirdest of the three.
For example, the spelling system is just silly. For example, why are there five ways to write "k" (click, kick, suck, schedule, iraq)?
And while we are at it, why not use "f.e." instead of "e.g."?
And why such an irrelevant six-billionth of the whole deserves to be honored by the capital leter ("I")?
I kould go on but i'm a bit busy katching up with my skedule. And BTW i like the spelling reform that KDE krowd is doing;-)
Rest assured that the above sentence reads much weirder to me than the "proper" english spelling but that's because i've got used to it during the years of usage. I remember my first English (BTW isn't it about time to relabel it "Earthish"?) classes... i was outraged when introduced to the weirdness of that spelling nonsence and it took years to cool down and get used to it.
In case you are wondering, my languages are (by sequence i've learned them): 1. Lithuanian (so called "native" one (i'd just label it "local")), 2. Russian (i used to be in Soviet Empires' claws), 3. English (computers, internet, huge amount of books being published, etc... plenty of reasons but certainly not the quality of the language).
And the bottom line is: I'm ready to "waste" yet another huge amount of time learning one more language artificial this time if i see the long term benefits ("long term" stands for - centuries and millenias not just years) of an introduction of such a language globally. But for now i'd just like to see the whole EU switching to English as a primary means of communication (i find talks about "EU-wide information society" to be silly without an idea of the common communications protocol (language) being promoted as well. f.e. - how do you imagine a US-like-dynamic EU-wide flow of (skilled) workforce if there is no common language being used in workplace?)
C# is ECMA standardized. Java is wholly owned by Sun.
The biggest chunk of any language is it's vocabulary. In this case it's API.
There are OSS J2EE projects (Jboss, Jonas, Jakarta's new project).
And then there is this purely proprietary thing called MBF - Microsoft Business Framework.
BTW to emphasise that the beef is in API, not language, let me remind you that.NET Framework can be programmed in many languages (C#, VB.NET, Managed C++, etc.).
What other nearly-irrelevant subset of the beef is standartized by ECMA? Ones-and-zeores maybe? You know: "our systems are open, 'cause they are based on "ones-and-zeroes" standard";-)
Anyway, ECMA seems to be almost a joke in terms of freedom of their standards: http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/mai n/0,14179,2832719,00.html:
But getting the stamp of approval from TC39 and the General Assembly doesn't mean that Microsoft is in any way ceding its ownership of C# and CLI. As part of the ECMA process, Microsoft, like any other company or organization seeking standardization of its technology, must make a declaration related to licensing the technology that complies with ECMA's Code of Conduct in Patent Matters. "The role of a standards body in this context is to warrant that licensing is possible on RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) conditions," explained van den Beld. So while Microsoft wouldn't be able to do whatever it wishes to C# itself, apparently the company would have plenty of latitude in terms of licensing.
And it appears that ISO (C#/CLI are ISO standards too) is no better: http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1027527673.ht ml (JPEG no more?):
'Register' article suggests the standards body may formally withdraw the JPEG standard altogether if Forgent continues with its patent claims...
ISO rules require that its standards be implementable free, or under "reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND) terms.
So what is a safer bet, OSS Java or.NET? Of course.NET, because it's closed and thus patent-torpedoes-invincible - can license patented technology, unlike all those open J2EE projects...
I'm sure it's better to suffer proprietary lock-in than potentially-deadly patent threat. Right?
Yet, even MS can be torpedoed successfully once in a while (e.g. that plugins patent hitting IE).
Software world seems to be a mess with no clear future perspective.
What's going to happen on the home level is what's already happened to the hardware market. Everyone is looking for the lowest price.... Microsoft (and lots of others) are going to have to compete against the software equivalent of incredibly cheap clone hardware... and they are going to lose.
I guess short version of your idea is: "MS's going to lose home market because their stuff is pricey".
Yes - in price-sensitive markets (a.k.a. developing world).
No - in wealthy "developed world".
Given that in not too distant future all the consumer oriented content (video/audio broadcasts/on-demands, games, ebooks, paysites...) is going to be under DRM locks... and those locks are going to be provided by MS... and they quite possibly are patented and thus GPL-Linux-incompatible... Linux has no chance on CE market. I guess that not only Linux won't make any new inroads into home market but it'll lose what's allready taken... say - tivo - if some law requiring to respect copyright will demand for all and every DVR to support DRM - tivo will have to run something DRM-enabled (like WinCE).
I see no chance for OSS in consumer market... unless it'll find a way to offer some cheap (no need for content providers/publishers to pay MS-tax) DRM solution. But so far OSS crowd was more interested in harming (DeCSS, eDonkey...) rather than helping them...
> The SWT libraries for all systems can be sent with an application
Not "all" supported by Java, but all _presently_ supported by SWT. Focus shifts from what Java supports and will support in the future to what SWT supports now, making your package a platform(s)-specific SWT-app rather than platform-independent Java-app.
> I will admit that changes in the GUI widget set can force you to send updates to the *SWT libraries*, but odd are that this will happen far less often than updates to your own product.
If your client buys Java software - expects it to run on any Java-enabled PC without any need to rely on your future upgrades/patches. That's the idea of Java as is see it.
> This "you'll have to repackage your whole application" is pretty ridiculous.
Let's say you have a relatively tirivial utility (no need for [frequent] future updates) and would like to offer it as a free download as a jar installer. You can do that with pure java (swing) but in case of SWT you'll have to repackage it any time a new SWT version for any of all those SWT-target apps becomes available if you wan't to avoid "your utility does not work on our systems [after we upgraded them AND installed the latest Java VM]").
> You argument has some merit, but I really don't see this as anything but a trivial obstacle.
Agreed. It's not an obstacle at all if you are not interested in platform-independent software packages. But platform-independence at the installation package (rather than source) level is the whole point behind Java.
> Maybe I misread or missed something altogether in your post?
Maybe my english is a bit crappy but i'll try it once again:
Pure Java (swing) app works on any computer that has Java VM installed. SWT Java App works on any computer that has Java VM installed AND happens to be one of those platforms that have support for them in the SWT library/libraries bundled with that app.
See the difference?
Let me put it another way. Imagine:
Contents of the "SWT Java app CD": Java bytecode + 5 SWT libraries for 5 target platforms. Works on: 5 target platforms provided they have java installed.
Contents of the C++ app CD: 5 different binary packages (built using say C++/wxWindows) for 5 target platforms. Works on: 5 target platforms.
Contents of the Pure Java (swing) CD: Java jar installer. Works on: any present AND future (IA-64, x86-64, PPC G5, IA-128, AMD-256...) computer with Java VM installed.
Consequences: In case of SWT app you can't say that it's a Java app (that can run on any PC with Java installed) - you'll have to provide a list of those particular target platforms as a requirement for your app to run. AND you'll have to be shipping SWT patches to you clients in order for your app to have the upgraded look-and-feel in case if the client decides to upgrade OS, or work at all in case your client migrates to different architecture, while in case of swing it'll be a problem of Sun to upgrade swing. AND given that MS seems to be enforced to include Java VM with it's upcoming Windows releases chances are that Windows Update is going to do JVM (swing included) updates as opposed to YOU sending SWT patches (or hosting them for online update) to your clients.
So... in case of SWT - instead of selling your customers Java software that will run on any of their present and future computers (isn't it the whole point behind Java? - all the platform specific things go to JRE, while applications are pure platform-independent "future-proof" bytecode?) you'll be selling them software that runs on a particular range of target platforms AND they'll have to rely on you providing them (SWT) updates for support of future platforms... this does not sound like Java-the-platform-independent-solution at all.
It's perfectly OK to use SWT (just like CLX, Qt, wxWindows, GTK...) if you are not interested platform-independent packages, but let's not be saying "SWT is an attractive alterna
> If you don't like swing... You might consider SWT.
Not so fast.
Sun blundered severely when they said WORA - Write Once Run Anywhere, because what they really should be saying is PODE - Package Once Deploy Everywhere.
That's the primary idea behind Java as far as i can see - make sure that all the platform specific stuff goes to runtime thus enabling applications to be pure 100% Java that can run anywhere.
Java WebStart almost got us there - you can add ONE link on your page that installs java app to ANY target platform out there. Also you can distribute pure Java apps and be sure that they will magically autoupgrade to any future GUI theme MS or Red Hat etc. will crack up (via swing upgrades that are responsibility of the Swing/JRE developers).
But here comes IBM and drops SWT... thus kicking Java down to the level Borland's CLX (Delphi/Kylix), Trolltech's QT, wxWindows, GTK, etc. - write once, package x times (once per target platform - win, mac, lin, etc...), litter your download page with multiple links (for every target platform) and go crazy with support, cause now it's yours - app developer's - responsibility to maintain your packages - upgrade for any future changes in GUI subsystems of any of your target OSes (YOU will have to repackege your software with the new versions of SWT, because Sun is not going to distrbute them).
So what do we do now? I think the only right way to solve this nasty downgrade problem is for IBM to work hard to make sure that SWT makes it into J2SE thus saving promise of Pure 100% Java Apps that can run anywhere. Until this happens anyone advocating SWT use should not forget to mention that it pollutes distributables with platform specific code thus essentially rendering those packages being platform-specific binaries rather that platform-independed java bytecodes thus pretty much killing the very point of those apps being Java rahter than say - Qt or wxWindows.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you expect fair use laws to blast DRM away? I would bet that those laws will be changed to save DRM instead.
...and succeeded where Germans have failed - managed to occupy quite a chunk of Europe for half a century.
Make sure to never refer to the Russians as Good Guys of WW2 in places where Eastern Europeans might hear you.
Enemy of my enemy is my friend?
We all know what happens to copyright when "fair use" meets P2P. Something needs to be done to stop it.
OTOH you are right as long as you're willing to follow the law rather than logic.
"Linux the Operating System" as in "Windows the Oparating System". I like consistency, you know. But that's offtopic...
the X11 window system has clipboardNo, it does not. According to my (and Windows) definition - clipboard is desktop-wide app-independent buffer. Here i'll say it again, this time pay attention to the boldface:
You can't: open a doc in a viewer, mark and copy some text, close a viewer, paste the text to an editor.
I am aware of projects that are working to remedy this... so hopefully Linux will finally get that clipboard thing pretty soon now.
Copying/pasting text with the mouse is far simpler in X (and in KDE, specifically) than in Windows.Read my original post and/or the subject. I don't care about "better". I want consistency.
The Win-key is by default configured to be a modifier in X. I am quite sure that this can be reconfigured to be a normal key, in which case you can then configure it to be the Panel Menu key.As a mostly Windows user i'm not interested in wasting my time searching for various KSteps, or digging under the X11's hood to get something as ubiquitous in a PC world as Windows L&F. Gimme a single chechbox to click to get that L&F. Better yet - make sure it's on by default, or show a suggestion to switch it on during the first user logon - so that Windows "grandmas" and "morons" won't have to look for it.
ToughThere should be a commintment from desktop (and app) makers to offer Windows L&F as an option. If you are serious about luring Windows masses to Linux, make sure that the first thing they see on "GNOME Usability Project" and "KDE Usability Project" web sites is something like this: "Yes there is Windows Look an Feel just for You!" Of course i've heard that some Linux geeks do not actually want the "unwashed Windows masses" to invade their territory - and that probably is the root of the problem.
In any case, if the window decoration looks a bit differently, or if a couple of keys are mapped a little differently, it is really not a thwart to producitivity.It's a severe annoyance. If you are switching between those two desktops several times a day that is.
Ever heard of copyright?
The purpose of Digital Rights Management is to protect copyright.
The purpose of DRM is to protect copyright, hence Digital Rights Management.
Bells and whistles are irrelevant. I need usage patterns to be the same.
1. Linux does not have a clipboard. E.g. you can't: open a doc in a viewer, mark and copy some text, close a viewer, paste the text to an editor.
2. I can't close a window just by moving mouse cursor to the upper right corner of a desktop and left-clicking. Linux forces me to aim to the close button accurately.
3. Win-key (lets just call it the Flag Key if touching anything labeled "Win" is a taboo in Linuxland ;-) ) doesn't show a "Start" menu.
KDE stuff is not enough for me. So GNOME stuff should offer an optional Windows L&F as well.
I'm stuck with two operating systems (Windows and Linux). And i think things are going to be this way for a very long time.
I want to get consistency among the two desktops. And i see only two ways for this to happen: 1. MS implements an optional Linux L&F on Windows, 2. Linux crowd implements an optional Windows L&F on Linux.
I'm sure you know which one of these two options is more likely to happen.
And i don't care about getting a perfect UI. Consistency is of a higer importance to me (and Windows desktop L&F is pretty good anyway).
Got it?
"Truth" and "fact" are synonyms. Both - in everyday usage and m-w.com definition. So stop spreading heresies here.
I guess the word "belief" fell out of you vocabulary...
Some silly redundancy? Yes. But the amount of it in English is just crazy in comparison to the other two languages i know (lt and ru).
I think it's bad when history stands in a way of logic and convenience. I just wanted to point out that wasting time learning some extra quirk of a language is a negative rather than positive thing. If i want to abbreviate "for example" i'm incilned to write it as "f.e." and that's it. One more example of such an annoyance is a.m./p.m.
Just for a record: neither lt nor ru capitalize "I".
Anyway this "I" and "e.g." thing is pretty irrelevant in contrast to the spelling madness.
Wrong.
People learn those languages that make the biggest amount of valuable information available to them.
English is my third language by acquisition while clearly the first one in terms of importance now.
And i find it to be the weirdest of the three.
For example, the spelling system is just silly. For example, why are there five ways to write "k" (click, kick, suck, schedule, iraq)?
And while we are at it, why not use "f.e." instead of "e.g."?
And why such an irrelevant six-billionth of the whole deserves to be honored by the capital leter ("I")?
I kould go on but i'm a bit busy katching up with my skedule. And BTW i like the spelling reform that KDE krowd is doing ;-)
Rest assured that the above sentence reads much weirder to me than the "proper" english spelling but that's because i've got used to it during the years of usage. I remember my first English (BTW isn't it about time to relabel it "Earthish"?) classes... i was outraged when introduced to the weirdness of that spelling nonsence and it took years to cool down and get used to it.
In case you are wondering, my languages are (by sequence i've learned them): 1. Lithuanian (so called "native" one (i'd just label it "local")), 2. Russian (i used to be in Soviet Empires' claws), 3. English (computers, internet, huge amount of books being published, etc... plenty of reasons but certainly not the quality of the language).
And the bottom line is: I'm ready to "waste" yet another huge amount of time learning one more language artificial this time if i see the long term benefits ("long term" stands for - centuries and millenias not just years) of an introduction of such a language globally. But for now i'd just like to see the whole EU switching to English as a primary means of communication (i find talks about "EU-wide information society" to be silly without an idea of the common communications protocol (language) being promoted as well. f.e. - how do you imagine a US-like-dynamic EU-wide flow of (skilled) workforce if there is no common language being used in workplace?)
Perhaps IBM should submit a JSR.
The biggest chunk of any language is it's vocabulary. In this case it's API.
There are OSS J2EE projects (Jboss, Jonas, Jakarta's new project).
And then there is this purely proprietary thing called MBF - Microsoft Business Framework.
BTW to emphasise that the beef is in API, not language, let me remind you that .NET Framework can be programmed in many languages (C#, VB.NET, Managed C++, etc.).
What other nearly-irrelevant subset of the beef is standartized by ECMA? Ones-and-zeores maybe? You know: "our systems are open, 'cause they are based on "ones-and-zeroes" standard" ;-)
Anyway, ECMA seems to be almost a joke in terms of freedom of their standards: http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/mai n/0,14179,2832719,00.html:
And it appears that ISO (C#/CLI are ISO standards too) is no better: http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1027527673.ht ml (JPEG no more?):
So what is a safer bet, OSS Java or .NET? Of course .NET, because it's closed and thus patent-torpedoes-invincible - can license patented technology, unlike all those open J2EE projects...
I'm sure it's better to suffer proprietary lock-in than potentially-deadly patent threat. Right?
Yet, even MS can be torpedoed successfully once in a while (e.g. that plugins patent hitting IE).
Software world seems to be a mess with no clear future perspective.
[Sorry for a somewhat-messy/offtopickish post.]
Ever heard of "being fluent in a second [or third...] language"?
I guess short version of your idea is: "MS's going to lose home market because their stuff is pricey".
Yes - in price-sensitive markets (a.k.a. developing world).
No - in wealthy "developed world".
Given that in not too distant future all the consumer oriented content (video/audio broadcasts/on-demands, games, ebooks, paysites...) is going to be under DRM locks... and those locks are going to be provided by MS... and they quite possibly are patented and thus GPL-Linux-incompatible... Linux has no chance on CE market. I guess that not only Linux won't make any new inroads into home market but it'll lose what's allready taken... say - tivo - if some law requiring to respect copyright will demand for all and every DVR to support DRM - tivo will have to run something DRM-enabled (like WinCE).
I see no chance for OSS in consumer market... unless it'll find a way to offer some cheap (no need for content providers/publishers to pay MS-tax) DRM solution. But so far OSS crowd was more interested in harming (DeCSS, eDonkey...) rather than helping them...
> The SWT libraries for all systems can be sent with an application
Not "all" supported by Java, but all _presently_ supported by SWT. Focus shifts from what Java supports and will support in the future to what SWT supports now, making your package a platform(s)-specific SWT-app rather than platform-independent Java-app.
> I will admit that changes in the GUI widget set can force you to send updates to the *SWT libraries*, but odd are that this will happen far less often than updates to your own product.
If your client buys Java software - expects it to run on any Java-enabled PC without any need to rely on your future upgrades/patches. That's the idea of Java as is see it.
> This "you'll have to repackage your whole application" is pretty ridiculous.
Let's say you have a relatively tirivial utility (no need for [frequent] future updates) and would like to offer it as a free download as a jar installer. You can do that with pure java (swing) but in case of SWT you'll have to repackage it any time a new SWT version for any of all those SWT-target apps becomes available if you wan't to avoid "your utility does not work on our systems [after we upgraded them AND installed the latest Java VM]").
> You argument has some merit, but I really don't see this as anything but a trivial obstacle.
Agreed. It's not an obstacle at all if you are not interested in platform-independent software packages. But platform-independence at the installation package (rather than source) level is the whole point behind Java.
> Maybe I misread or missed something altogether in your post?
Maybe my english is a bit crappy but i'll try it once again:
Pure Java (swing) app works on any computer that has Java VM installed.
SWT Java App works on any computer that has Java VM installed AND happens to be one of those platforms that have support for them in the SWT library/libraries bundled with that app.
See the difference?
Let me put it another way. Imagine:
Contents of the "SWT Java app CD": Java bytecode + 5 SWT libraries for 5 target platforms.
Works on: 5 target platforms provided they have java installed.
Contents of the C++ app CD: 5 different binary packages (built using say C++/wxWindows) for 5 target platforms.
Works on: 5 target platforms.
Contents of the Pure Java (swing) CD: Java jar installer.
Works on: any present AND future (IA-64, x86-64, PPC G5, IA-128, AMD-256...) computer with Java VM installed.
Consequences:
In case of SWT app you can't say that it's a Java app (that can run on any PC with Java installed) - you'll have to provide a list of those particular target platforms as a requirement for your app to run. AND you'll have to be shipping SWT patches to you clients in order for your app to have the upgraded look-and-feel in case if the client decides to upgrade OS, or work at all in case your client migrates to different architecture, while in case of swing it'll be a problem of Sun to upgrade swing. AND given that MS seems to be enforced to include Java VM with it's upcoming Windows releases chances are that Windows Update is going to do JVM (swing included) updates as opposed to YOU sending SWT patches (or hosting them for online update) to your clients.
So... in case of SWT - instead of selling your customers Java software that will run on any of their present and future computers (isn't it the whole point behind Java? - all the platform specific things go to JRE, while applications are pure platform-independent "future-proof" bytecode?) you'll be selling them software that runs on a particular range of target platforms AND they'll have to rely on you providing them (SWT) updates for support of future platforms... this does not sound like Java-the-platform-independent-solution at all.
It's perfectly OK to use SWT (just like CLX, Qt, wxWindows, GTK...) if you are not interested platform-independent packages, but let's not be saying "SWT is an attractive alterna
> If you don't like swing... You might consider SWT.
Not so fast.
Sun blundered severely when they said WORA - Write Once Run Anywhere, because what they really should be saying is PODE - Package Once Deploy Everywhere.
That's the primary idea behind Java as far as i can see - make sure that all the platform specific stuff goes to runtime thus enabling applications to be pure 100% Java that can run anywhere.
Java WebStart almost got us there - you can add ONE link on your page that installs java app to ANY target platform out there. Also you can distribute pure Java apps and be sure that they will magically autoupgrade to any future GUI theme MS or Red Hat etc. will crack up (via swing upgrades that are responsibility of the Swing/JRE developers).
But here comes IBM and drops SWT... thus kicking Java down to the level Borland's CLX (Delphi/Kylix), Trolltech's QT, wxWindows, GTK, etc. - write once, package x times (once per target platform - win, mac, lin, etc...), litter your download page with multiple links (for every target platform) and go crazy with support, cause now it's yours - app developer's - responsibility to maintain your packages - upgrade for any future changes in GUI subsystems of any of your target OSes (YOU will have to repackege your software with the new versions of SWT, because Sun is not going to distrbute them).
So what do we do now? I think the only right way to solve this nasty downgrade problem is for IBM to work hard to make sure that SWT makes it into J2SE thus saving promise of Pure 100% Java Apps that can run anywhere. Until this happens anyone advocating SWT use should not forget to mention that it pollutes distributables with platform specific code thus essentially rendering those packages being platform-specific binaries rather that platform-independed java bytecodes thus pretty much killing the very point of those apps being Java rahter than say - Qt or wxWindows.