IDE written in D

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2013-08-06 14:23, eles wrote:

> Yes, but in order to create the GUI (remember, you have no widgets to
> wrap), I tend to think it would be better to have the toolkit designing
> its own widgets (you will still need some graphic primitives, but that
> is basically drivers).
>
> For example, how you wold solve this problem with DWT or any other
> wrapper toolkit:
>
> "implement a calendar-like widget for an operating system"
>
> You cannot rely on wrapping a "calendar" widget of the OS' GUI, simply
> because you are writing the GUI.

If a widget isn't available on a given platform one would have to 
implement that using the graphics primitives, that's also what DWT does.

> OTOH, if the toolkit designs its own widgets (in terms of "draw pixel;
> draw line" etc.), you could build up the GUI of the OS itself.
>
> In my view, a systems programming language should not rely on the fact
> that widgets already exist and only needs to wrap those.

You would still need to some graphics primitives. Do you want to 
implement them yourself as well? I mean, you have to draw the line 
somewhere. There's always a layer beneath you that you rely on, if 
you're not doing embedded or similar.

> Yes, C++ GUI libraries, many of them, rely on that assumption; however,
> none of them is standard.
>
> Imagine the guys at Microsoft writing the basic DLLs that provide the
> user the pushbutton, the radiobutton etc. They have no previously
> existing widgets to wrap. They are creating the widgets that others will
> wrap.
>
> So, what a systems language should provide in its *standard* toolkit?
> Something that could be run on the bare metal and allow building on top
> of it, or something that rely on already having those things written by
> somebody else? Who will write this "else" and in what language, and with
> what library? (it still could be in D, but *without the support of the
> standard toolkit*)

You will always have to rely on something else, see above.

> I think that providing only a wrapper of native widgets will make
> writing native widgets in D less appealing.

So you want a non-native toolkit.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg