Re: [boost] Re: Java style GUI in C++

From: Mathew Robertson (mathew.robertson_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-25 19:37:54

> > good example - text fields in Mozilla work the same way as Win32 edit fields, 
> > and mostly the same way as edit fields on most Linux libraries.
> > 
> > So do the Mozilla coders choose to implement different functionality for a 
> > different platform, or do they make the application interface consistant 
> > across all platforms?   If the answer is OS consistancy (rather than 
> > application consistancy), then we are back to square one of ont having a 
> > truely cross-platform library.
> 
> I don't know why you believe that "truely" cross-platform implies a uniform user 
> experience on all platforms. Uniform user experience on all platforms tends to 
> mean wrong user experience on all but possibly one, and users (at least Mac 
> users, because they tends to have high expectations of their applications) 
> reject this.
> 
> Put simply, in professional Mac development, developer convenience is secondary 
> to user experience, and the market has shown time and again that Mac users are 
> willing to pay for products that respect them. If you are designing a 
> cross-platform framework, you have to understand this. 

I do - which is why I say that a cross-platofrm GUI is extremely hard.

> 
> To answer your other question, I believe that a boost C++ GUI framework would 
> gain adoption on Mac OS X _if_ it is designed with users, not developers, in 
> mind -- which is precisely what I am trying to explain here.

If it is not designed primarly for developers, why would an OSX developer choose a C++ library over the more conventional C/O-C library?  There would be no real incentive to switch to C++...

And yes I do agree that it should be designed based around the user experience, and not necessarily around the developer...  I'm trying to say is that for Win32 / Unix, you can get away with using C++ for developing GUI's, as this is the norm.  For Mac, its not the norm, so why would a developer switch to C++, from say O-C...

Mathew