[boost] Re: boost Windowing Toolkit

From: scleary_at_[hidden]
Date: 1999-12-13 09:11:28

I just would like to say:

Can we make it template-based instead of inheritance-based with a bunch of
properties?  I use VCL (Borland's latest) at work, and it's a pain because
it's so resource-unfriendly!  Each of the components have two or three dozen
"properties" which determine everything about it, from the items in a list
box to the background color, and everything is virtual.  In short, it is
very inefficient.

Also, I would like each part of it to be as independant as possible -- the
main thing I don't like about frameworks (portable or not) is that you have
to use the framework, and that can dictate the structure of your
application!  Change framework -> change structure -> massive re-writing.
Let's not write another framework -- let's write a collection of possibly
cooperating components.

        -Steve

P.S. I wrote a Unix program once in Tcl/Tk.  After porting it to Win32, I
was less than impressed with: 1) The look and feel were wrong, 2) It was
_very_ slow.  If we do write this toolkit, it should run as efficiently as
possible on any Windows system, and the user should be able to determine if
they want native look and feel or user-specified (what M$ calls
"owner-draw").

P.P.S. There is a framework for doing cross-platform "services"; it doesn't
provide objects for any GUI-related things AFAIK, but it has done many
useful OS things, like named pipes and TCP/IP.  It is inheritance-based,
locks you into their framework, and isn't free; but if it wasn't for these
three drawbacks, I would recommend it because I like the design.  It's
called ACE, http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html