Re: GNOME and wxGTK

[Bertrand Guiheneuf <Bertrand Guiheneuf inria fr>]

sopwith@redhat.com said:
// Don't take this the wrong way, but that's a sort of lame answer ;-)
I can't take it the wrong way because I don't understand the meaning 
the meaning of the word "lame" :-)))
( That's true )

// Miguel asked a straight-forward question about what features you
// thought wxGTK has that you like, and you go off on this personal
// opinion disclaimer thing. :) 
There are indeed nice features I like in wxGTK. There is mainly one but
I will have to explain why I like it in a particular case, not in general.
It is is win$ portability.
(see after).

// Did you originally mean to say "I prefer wxGTK to direct gtk+ just
// because of my personal taste"? (i.e. you like the toolkit)? Or could
// you post to the list with the actual wxGTK features that are useful
// that are not in gtk+ itself? 
I cant't answer this question, because I don't really like C++ so I never used gtk--
But what I know is that:
For the moment: there is no way to print or generate postscript or 
persistent object in general with gtk+ or gtk--.
It is possible with wxGTK.
There is (was) no canvas support in gtk or obgtk...

I want to write a plot library NOW. Not in 6 months.
In 6 months I will have to write my PhD.


The question is now, why woiuld I find wxGTK useful. OK, there are particular
cases when you HAVE to write your application for win$ too.
I have a particular example:
there is a case simlar to micro$oft in the scientific community.
It's nme is math$works. The majority of the scientific community uses matlab, 
whreas their livence are very expensive. As a consequence, "poor" labs 
in africa or south america can't buy it. There exists alternatives to matlab
(scilab and octave). But the problem is that nearly all the scientific
toolboxes are written in matlab. 
The question is : why do the people use matlab instead of octave?
I don't know very much octave but I know very well scilab.
The answers are:
Matlab has wonderful graphics.
Matlab runs on win$ (plus Unix)
Rich people are lasy.
Scilab has an ugly Xwindows interface

Scilab team has already found an answer to the second point. Scilab has been ported to windows.

There are people here trying to write a gnome-scilab; In conjonction with
a new plot lib, this will offer a complete alternative to matlab.*
Complete? No. Not completly, because the plot lib would have to be 
rewritten entirely for win$$ :-((

Because I knew taht I decided to writre my own canvas in objC. It uses
gnu-plotutils.
But if I knew wxGTK would be included in gnome, this would change completely
the situation 

	Bertrand