David W wrote:
Thanks for the feedback. Being "The most commonly requested new feature for C++ ", I am very surprise that I got only one response (yours). Something doesn't add up.
"Most debated" or not, inability to reach conclusions is, by itself, an inherent problem.
See more down here.
"Reece Dunn" <msclrhd@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:BAY101-F230B3798C7C19BD9D8274AA08A0@phx.gbl...
David Wehite wrote:
In his article "The Design of C++0x", published in C/C++ Users Journal,
May
2005, the author of C++ Bjarne Stroustrup wrote, "The most commonly requested new feature for C++ is a standard GUI".
And the most debated as to how it would work ;)
I am new to Boost and will appreciate if some folks here would give me a summary of Boost organization's standing on such a standard GUI library.
If
and how was it addressed and pointers to work on the subject if such has been done.
I have, as well as many others, have made attempts into this brave new
world
;).
I suggest getting the framework right first to allow the support for the GUI/Graphics libraries to be build on top of them.
(1) Platform -- detection for what GUI library is being used; native
(GTK?,
PalmOS API, Win32 API, etc.), native extension (ATL/WTL, MFC, GDK+, etc.)
or
cross-platform (wxWidgets, Qt, etc.) and the platform being used for that cross-platform GUI. This could be an extension to Boost.Config with platform/win32.hpp, platform/wxwidgets.hpp, etc.
I don't understand why you even mention the word "platform". C/C++ were born to be (very) portable languages. You would not bring it up with regard to the entity called 'int' right?
As noted elsewhere...*I* would, even if Reece wouldn't. And there are serious reasons to consider platforms in regard to GUIs.
Now, when I say "I don't understand", this is of course not accurate because... (I think at least) I do. Granted that the scale of a type GUI is not anywere near the scale of 'int'. This does not mean that we should give up on it, just because "its hard work"... :-). And we should strive to make it platform independent like any other part of the language. You don't do any "detection" when you use any other library.
I really don't think we want standard C++ to have a "builtin" GUI that "simply works" on all systems. That makes me think of the Java GUI, which works on all systems with a VM, but unfortunately looks like a Java app regardless. The Windows GUI behaves slightly different than GNOME, and there are quite large differences to OSX from either. I don't think we want a GUI system where people will say, "Hey look at this app; it's obviously written in C++, judging by the UI!" -- /Brian Riis