GUI strategy?

[Bruno Medeiros]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> Frank Benoit wrote:
>> Again and again it is said in this newsgroup: "D needs a GUI"
>> But there are existing alternatives:
>> DFL/GTKD/MinWin/DWT/wxD/....
>> (and more http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?GuiLibraries)
>> So I think some ppl are happy with one of those existing solutions.
>>
>> So what is missing for those, who say D needs a GUI?
>>
>> In the world outside of D, there are those big ones:
>> - .NET/Mono
>> - Eclipse RCP, Netbeans
>> - QT
>> - ...?
>>
>> They all are not only a GUI, say a collection of basic controls. They
>> are complete frameworks. They offer complete Dialogs, separation of data
>> and presentation (MFC/data binding), persistance, update mechnisms,
>> docking systems, extension mechanisms, tools, IDE support, commercial
>> support, ...
>>
>> Is it something like this, ppl mean if they say 'D needs a GUI'?
>> I can only speak for myself, and yes, that is what I think. I wish i
>> could use a framework, which has an answer for many of the common tasks
>> while building a GUI application.
>>
>> What do you think, does this problem "D needs a GUI" really exist?
>> Seriously, how can this be solved in the next 1..2 years?
>> ... and who will do it?
> 
> I think who will do it is the real issue.  Without a leader the GUI will 
> die.  Walter didn't kill DWT by giving it his blessings, the main 
> developer(s) killed it by moving on to other things.
> 
> If you're going to make THE gui for D (or any language), then you'd 
> better be prepared to embark on a 5-10 year, or perhaps even life-long 
> project.  You'll need to make frequent releases.  And you better respond 
> to people's questions.  Not just this week but for the next 5-10 years. 
>  And have a bug tracker and use it.  And treat people's patches as 
> precious, either telling them why you're rejecting them or incorporating 
> them ASAP.  And write lots of documentation and tutorials and example 
> programs demonstrating your library.
> 
> And really that applies to any big open source library or project.
> 
> People don't want to rely on any project that seems to be the main 
> developer's "when I can find time" side project.
> 
> Currently DFL seems the closest to me to having this kind of dedicated 
> leader.  Hmm.. maybe I should see if there's anything to do to help DFL 
> out...
> 
> --bb

Whatever happened to making the code clean and structured enough so that 
other people can re-use it, even if the main developer now has no time?

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D