Ideal D GUI Toolkit

[Tyler Jameson Little]

>> I'd love to get this up and running but I think we've got a 
>> blocker
>> right now in D and that is the lack of package import,
>> the GUI system is
>> going to be a monster no matter how it's sliced and I'd lack 
>> to avoid
>> the std.datetime effect. Sorry Jonathan Davis!
>
> Why do you need package import?  Can't you achieve the 
> equivalent by having one module that imports all the others 
> publicly leaving the application programmer only one module to 
> import?

I also agree. But a package import is in the works apparently, so 
by the time something is ready to show, the feature will be 
there. Just shim for now (with an all.d or whatever) and get 
stuff done. I think we're looking at a 1yr or so investment 
before trying to include in Phobos becomes a consideration.

>> Once we get package import into D we can start building out 
>> the basics.
>> Do you have any experience with concurrent hashmaps by chance?
>
> No. Why do you want concurrency? Aren't associative arrays 
> hashmaps?  My only experience with hashing techniques (other 
> than as an end user of classes/functions/features using them) 
> was implementing git binary patches in Python for use in one of 
> my GUIs.

I agree. UIs are asynchronous by nature, not concurrent. If we 
agree on this premise, basic associative arrays can be used, and 
all access to them can be guarded by a simple mutex.

I'm completely willing to head up the initial development. I 
probably won't get anything done, and any initial work will be 
Linux-specific (I honestly don't care about Mac OS X or Windows). 
If anything does get done, I'll definitely come back here to get 
help on the design. I'm willing to do some leg-work, but I'm not 
experienced in any way, shape or form with GUI development (most 
of my work is server-type stuff in Go or front-end stuff in 
JS/HTML5/CSS3).

If we're generally in agreement that a UI toolkit is a good 
direction, I'd love to waste the next few months of my life doing 
something that likely won't go anywhere. I personally think it's 
much more exciting to make something in native D instead of 
trying to work around the lack of concern other C++ toolkits like 
Qt have for cross-language portability.