GUI strategy?

[Bill Baxter]

Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> 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?
> 

It's fine.  But it's not enough.

--bb