Re: [Caml-list] OCamlSDL

[John Max Skaller <skaller@ozemail.com.au>]

Oliver Bandel wrote:

>
>Tk is designed for interactive GUI-Applications. And, yes,
>it provides graphical output with the canvas-widget.
>
But there is no tree widget, and that is a mandatory widget.
So Tk is broken, and not worth fixing. Of course, there is a tree
widget in TiX. Then again, Tk isn't thread safe... the current
version of Tcl is thread safe, but Oustermann has said Tk
is beyond hope. He're right. It is a very bad toolkit by
modern standards.

Tk has to go. Its rubbish. There are several
alternatives.

	1. wxWindows -- C++ based
but can be bound into other languages.
It is also somewhat archaic, but probably the best
C/C++ level portable GUI around.

	2. GTK. Isn't mature or well
ported yet. I'm using a GTK based mailer
now .. and believe me, the text editing
is very bad still.

	3. Swing. Portable but Java based.

	4. OpenGL. Designed for 3D, not
really having 2D widget toolkit, Standardised,
originally produced by the top graphics company
for high performance motion.

The simple fact is the kind of static 2D GUI
we're using now is already archaic. Something
designed for 3D and for motion is a clear
winner, because that is how interfaces are going.

If you don't know about that, you should play
more computer games. Checkout animated cursors
drag and drop fading windows and sliding panels features
added to Windows and even Linux GUI systems.

Wake up. 3D motion is where it is at.
The lack of buttons is not an obstacle.
They can be BUILT from the right portable
3d motion primitives and given a rich
variety of behaviours, not constrained
by stupid special cases of existing GUI tool kits.

If you want to find some data in a modern system,
you're NOT going to find it by clicking thru
some stupid menu. Nope. You're going to 
WALK thru a scene to a place the information
is stored.

Sure, such interfaces are premature.
But Ocaml can get a head start by making
3D motion standard. That way
people might start writing stuff that uses it.

Right now, I will not write any gui stuff
simply because there are no interfaces
available worth using. I'd love to see
that change.

-- 
John Max Skaller, mailto:skaller@ozemail.com.au
snail:10/1 Toxteth Rd, Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia.
voice:61-2-9660-0850




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