This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by James Robertson.
Original Post: GUI building
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml
Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
Chris Admanson wonders if the problem with Java GUIs is that - since they are so easy to create - too many people who should not create GUIs are doing so. He writes:
A couple of people made the point that new and better GUI tools won't necessarily result in better applications. jeremyzacker writes:
The problem with Java GUIs isn't the language, its the notion that any Java developer can write a GUI. Java makes it so darn easy to write GUI code that people who would normally have nothing to do with a GUIs think that they can write one.
He goes on to note that the real problem is with developers who don't understand threading and the Java AWT event-dispatch/repainting scheme, who block the GUI and create apps that appear slow or prone to freezes. Good point, and one that was directly addressed in a recent java.net article by Jonathan Simon. I ran in to similar problems a while back and blogged on ONJava about it.
First off, if you don't have a GUI builder, GUIs aren't "easy to write". In fact, a lot of the issues with event hookups likely derive from people not following the intended practice with the frameworks they get - something a decent GUI Builder does by wiring that stuiff for you (which, incidentally, is one of the bigger complaints about the VW GUI builder - the fact that it leaves an inordinate amount of that work to the developer). If a system where it is "too easy" to build GUI's leads to constant performance problems, which in turn yields few mainstream GUI apps - then I really, really want someone to explain the prevalence of C, C++, and VB based GUI apps on Windows. Visual Studio (and Borland's tools, et. al.) make it very easy to slap together a GUI - much easier than it is in Java. So if the "too easy" premise held water, there would be a dearth of Windows GUI apps. Hmmm
Previous Topic
