Re: [boost] GUI library - another one

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-03-03 21:38:59

At 11:13 AM 3/3/2004, Matthias Schabel wrote:

 >As far as the demo program :
 >
 >int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 >{
 >     window w = create_window();
 >     w->title("Example window");
 >     w->contain(create_button(w, "Hello, world!"));
 >     wait_for_signal(w->delete_signal);
 >}
 >
 >why not :
 >
 >int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 >{
 >     window w("Example window");
 >     w.add(button("Hello, world!"));
 >     w.wait_for(delete_signal());
 >}
 >
 >or something like that.

I really took an instant dislike to the original demo code. Matthias' "why 
not" version is much more to my taste.

The "why not" version seems more like C++. The "demo" version seems like 
something left over from the C days.

My own interest in a Boost GUI library would be for pretty simple 
applications and for teaching C++. Maybe a few medium complexity apps if 
the  GUI requirements weren't too hard to meet.

Now if such a GUI could also handle more complex apps, fine, but only if 
there is no impact on the simple "hello, world" level applications.

Even the "why not" version seems overly complex compared to a console 
iostreams "Hello, world". Why not just:

      winout << title("Example window") << button("Hello, world!")
             << wait_for(delete_signal);

I'm not necessarily pushing that exact approach, but just pointing out more 
C++-like alternatives.

--Beman