Re: [boost] GUI foundations (about Boost's position/work on aStandard GUI Library for...)

From: Geoffrey Romer (geoff.romer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-09-28 17:40:07

> > (1) Platform -- detection for what GUI library is being used; native
> (GTK?,
> > PalmOS API, Win32 API, etc.), native extension (ATL/WTL, MFC, GDK+, etc.)
> or
> > cross-platform (wxWidgets, Qt, etc.) and the platform being used for that
> > cross-platform GUI. This could be an extension to Boost.Config with
> > platform/win32.hpp, platform/wxwidgets.hpp, etc.
>
> I don't understand why you even mention the word "platform". C/C++ were
> born to be (very) portable languages. You would not bring it up with regard
> to the entity called 'int' right?

Actually, I suspect somebody *did*, when the C language was first
being designed and standardized, because the behavior of the 'int'
type is dependent on the support of the platform (the hardware, in
this case) for integer operations, and the int type had to be defined
in a way that was flexible enough to take advantage of that capability
on almost any hardware. That's why int doesn't have a specified number
of bits- so that it can adapt to the platform. That's one reason C/C++
code isn't as portable as one might like.

The same applies to a standard GUI library, but raised to the Nth
power. Such a library would have to adapt itself to the GUI
capabilities provided by the host platform. This doesn't mean
comitting the library to a single platform, but it does mean enabling
the library to take advantage of whatever capabilities are present.