I am fed up with Python GUI toolkits...

What is wrong with them:

1. Designed for other languages, particularly C++, tcl and Java.

2. Bloatware. Qt and wxWidgets are C++ application frameworks. (Python
has a standard library!)

3. Unpythonic memory management: Python references to deleted C++
objects (PyQt). Manual dialog destruction (wxPython). Parent-child
ownership might be smart in C++, but in Python we have a garbage
collector.

4. They might look bad (Tkinter, Swing with Jython).

5. All projects to write a Python GUI toolkit die before they are
finished. (General lack of interest, bindings for Qt or wxWidgets
bloatware are mature, momentum for web development etc.)


How I would prefer the GUI library to be, if based on "native"
widgets:

1. Lean and mean -- do nothing but GUI. No database API, networking
API, threading API, etc.

2. Do as much processing in Python as possible. No more native code
(C, C++, Cython) than needed.

3. Instances of extension types can clean themselves up on
deallocation. No parent-child ownership model to mess things up. No
manual clean-up. Python does all the reference counting we need.

4. No artist framework. Use OpenGL, Cairo, AGG or whatever else is
suitable.

5. No particular GUI thread synchronization is needed -- Python has a
GIL.

6. Expose the event loop to Python.

7. Preferably BSD-style license, not even LGPL.

8. Written for Python in Python -- not bindings for a C++ or tcl
toolkit.


The Eclipse SWT library does some of this for Java does some of this,
though it also has flaws (e.g. manual memory management). A Python GUI
toolkit could be partially based on the SWT code.

Is it worth the hassle to start a new GUI toolkit project?

Or should modern deskop apps be written with something completely
different, such as HTML5?


Sturla





.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: [ANN] Atox 0.2 released
    ... Well it was part of my strategy of getting Python accepted into the ... very promising in the simplification of GUI interfaces. ... programmers involved in creating a FAST gui programming language you ... built widgets laying on a stalled production line, ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: gui4cbm4win updated to version 0.40 to accommodate to OpenCBM 0.4.0
    ... for some reason I thought the OP was the author of the driver etc. ... the originating author of the GUI told me ... Spiro in contrast is working since 2000 or 2001 ... I've done most of those too, except PHP and I personally find python the most ...
    (comp.emulators.cbm)
  • Re: A little bit else I would like to discuss
    ... standard Python Library. ... Let's say There are 5 GUI libraries ... We need Ideas for creating the a standard library in Python for Image ... libraries, then WinForms and later WPF on .NET. ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: Open source alternative for MsAccess?
    ... Open Sourece advocates keep trying to convince us to convert to Open Source ... Let's take Python. ... means, I already don't have a language with a GUI designer, and I have to hard ...
    (comp.os.linux.development.apps)
  • Re: GUI tutorial
    ... python with a GUI? ... That depends on which GUI toolkit you want to use. ... simple apps just by looking at the demos source code and reading some ...
    (comp.lang.python)