[GRASS-dev] GUI toolkits

[Trevor Wiens]

On Sun, 28 May 2006 13:01:25 +0100
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com> wrote:

> 
> Trevor Wiens wrote:
> 
> > As you may recall this question was asked some time ago and the general
> > feeling was that a separate GRASS GUI was desirable. The main reasons
> > stated for that as I recall were:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > 2. GRASS is primarily written in C so if we want to use a compiled
> > language, C would be the natural choice.
> 
> This is only relevant if the GUI actually links to GRASS libraries,
> which isn't necessarily a good idea. The design of the GRASS libraries
> doesn't really lend itself to persistent applications.
> 

I know and have quoted you recently on this issue.

> Integrating C and C++ code isn't particularly hard; one of the key
> design goals of C++ was compatibility with C. The primary objection to
> C++ is that it tends to be much harder to "dip into" C++ code than C
> code, even if you're equally fluent in both languages.

I was thinking more in terms of using a single language for
development; adding languages adds complexity to the maintenance of the
application. Right now we have two (C++ modules excepted), one compiled
and one interpreted. From my experience and reading this is generally a
good idea of keeping code that needs speed in C and put the front end
in something that allows for easy development and modification. C++
doesn't help on either front, so it is probably a non-starter. Of
languages that are available, suitable for the task and easy to
maintain, we don't have a lot of options other and Ruby, Python or
OCaml. I don't know however if there are cross platform tools
available for Ruby or OCaml, further how many people are familiar with
those tools. I suppose I could also add Objective C to the list, but
again there are availability issues and a dearth of developers. As I
see it now, after all the discussion on this list over the last 6
months we have two reasonable choices; develop the next GUI for
GRASS using C, which pretty much means GTK AFAIK, or Python.

T
-- 
Trevor Wiens 
twiens at interbaun.com

The significant problems that we face cannot be solved at the same 
level of thinking we were at when we created them. 
(Albert Einstein)