[boost] Re: [gui] The Big Picture [and wxWidgets]

From: Matt S Trentini (matt_trentini_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-01-02 10:51:02

Heya Beman,

Beman Dawes wrote:

> Since Boost is an effort of individuals without much formal 
> organization, I don't think Boost and wxWidgets can or should 
> collaborate in the way that two more formal organizations might 
> collaborate, with written agreements, a budget, and that sort of thing.

Agreed.  But I'm not suggesting any formal agreements or budget.  What 
I'm trying to do is gauge whether there are others in the boost 
community that think a collaboration with the wx developers could work. 
  If there is then I want to know what those people want out of the 
collaboration so we can get started on making it happen.

> Collaboration can take place, however, if Boosters join the appropriate 
> wxWidgets list, and contribute their expertise in C++ and Boost to the 
> wxWidgets effort, and occasionally report back on the Boost list 
> describing progress or requesting Boost features or fixes to help the 
> wxWidgets effort.

Again, I agree that this is a likely scenario, but before I invest my 
time I want to know if there are others that are going to help.  What I 
don't want is for me (and maybe a couple of others) helping the wx guys, 
Hajo to continue to work on Lit, David to work on his internal library, 
John to work solely on Win32Generics, Andy to do something else, Reece 
and Rene to start working on yet another library.  Surely it'd be a 
waste of precious resources.  The ideal situation, IMHO, would be for 
everyone to be working on one library.

Obviously some people are going to want to do their own thing (I'm 
pretty sure John is dead-set on Win32Generics!) but as long as there's a 
significant number of people prepared to commit to the same solution I'd 
be keen.

If that solution involves basing a GUI library on wxWidgets then I 
suggest that we as the boost community need to think about what the 
solution should look like - what do we want to change?  Then we need to 
go to the wx gang and tell them what we want and ask if they're 
interested in helping...

Incidently, I've taken your advice and joined the appropriate wx lists. 
  I'll at least try and notify this list of any significant decisions 
going on over there!  :)  And I'll let them know how boost can help them.

> If it comes to pass that wxWidgets morphs into modern C++ with Boost 
> compatible licensing, collaboration might increase and the WxWindows 
> folks might decide to submit wxWidgets to Boost. But even if submission 
> to Boost never happens, both the Boost and wxWidgets communities will 
> benefit if wxWidgets is modernized.

True, and that's all good.  However I want us to combine our efforts if 
possible because, in my opinion, a terrible outcome would be for 
multiple competing libraries to be developed.

> The above isn't meant to discourage those who would like to build a 
> Boost GUI library from scratch. But that is an exceedingly difficult 
> task, and in the meantime I think we need to stay open to solutions 
> invented elsewhere.

It's going to be damn hard to develop a GUI library from scratch but 
agree that people shouldn't be discouraged.  Especially in cases like 
Eugene's (Notus: http://notus.sourceforge.net/) where they're attempting 
something quite different.

But my premise is that the boost GUI - if we decide to work on such a 
beast - should leverage from existing work as much as possible.

Cheers,
Matt