[boost] Re: GUI Library Proposal for a Proposal

From: Jared McIntyre (jmcintyre_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-05 10:28:15

>Edward Diener wrote:
>>
>>No !!!!! WxWidgets has almost nothing to do with modern C++. Let's no go
>>there, or have anything to do with supporting any other GUI implementation.
>>
>
>Also, wxWindows is a huge library.  If we were to introduce 
>something in boost, I'd very much like it to be as small and light 
>weight (as win32gui is supposed to be), not a collection of 
>multi-megabyte dlls required, just to wrap win32 or what ever the 
>underlying library is.
>
>If people want more powerful components, they can be added 
>afterwards, but the underlying library around core OS controls 
>should be as small as possible.
>
>Thanks
>
>Russell

Honestly, I don't buy into the idea of cross platform GUI at all.  I 
have lots of reasons born out of experience with them that I won't 
get into here, but in general, I find they are nice for the 
developer, but poor for the user. I would much rather write my 
backend code in a cross-platform language, and hook it up to a GUI 
designed for each platform I support. That is why, at first glance 
anyway, I like the idea behind the Lit Window design.  Most of the 
backend is GUI neutral, allowing you to do more work in your 
cross-platform code.  In theory, this could be used to simplify the 
platform specific GUI code that needs to be written.  I'd much rather 
see C++ go a route of making it easier to develop for different GUI 
libraries than to actually develop one of its own (since I don't 
think it would get much use anyway).

JJared McIntyre