[gnomemm] Re: Designing a new C++ Framework ?

[murrayc t-online de (Murray Cumming)]

On Mon, 2003-01-27 at 15:31, Antonio José Sáenz Albanés wrote:
> Hi Murray,
> 
> How are you?
> What about new year plans?
> Will you go to GU4DEC?

Yes, I will definitely be there in Dublin in June and I hope other C++
coders will be there too.

> Well... After studying your Bakery Framework (great!) I am just
> looking for a bigger framework (You know, very big applications with
> no simple interfaces)
>  and having read the below e-mail from Ralph Johnson I am in the way
> of making some decisions and design a new framework based on MVC++ (a
> modified Reenskaug original MVC for C++ from Ari Jaaksi) (of course
> gtkmm, gnomemm and libsig++) and CORBA (orbitcpp instead of TAO).

Note that orbitcpp is not particularly good at the moment. If you want
to use it you should expect to work on it yourself.

However, I recently separated the GUI interfaces from the non-GUI
interfaces in Bakery, so maybe a similar design could be used for CORBA
component interfaces instead of C++ classes. Or maybe it would be enough
to implement a Bakery::Document that gets/sets its data from via CORBA
client.

It would be best to tell us about any particular problems that you are
trying to solve.

Note that Bakery uses Document/View, not full MVC. It would use MVC if
someone could show how that would be helpful.

> I attach some papers and the original message thread..
> 
> I only need some tips about actual development of gnomemm and orbitcpp
> and libbonobomm.

There are examples in the tarballs.

>  Some examples about the server loop mixing orbitcpp and gnomemm.

Could you be more specific?

> 
> Thanks
> 
> 
> 
> -------- Original Message -------- 
>                           Subject: 
> Re: MVC pattern for complex GUI's
> in Java/C++, and testing such.
>                       Resent-Date: 
> 27 Jan 2003 12:08:47 -0000
>                       Resent-From: 
> patterns-discussion cs uiuc edu
>                         Resent-CC: 
> recipient list not shown: ;
>                              Date: 
> Mon, 27 Jan 2003 06:12:25 -0600
> (CST)
>                              From: 
> Ralph Johnson <johnson cs uiuc edu>
>                                To: 
> patterns-discussion cs uiuc edu,
> philp9 yahoo com
>                                CC: 
> refactoring yahoogroups com,
> siliconvalleypatterns yahoogroups com, testdrivendevelopment yahoogroups com
> Subject: MVC pattern for complex GUI's in Java/C++, and testing such.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I been investigating the Model View Controller (MVC) Pattern re:
> 
> - POSA1 - Model View Controller P125-143
> - Working with objects P318-> by Trygve Reenskaug
> - Mastering MVC - Hunt - Java Jolt
> - Implementing Interactive Applications in C++ - Ari Jaaksi
> - Applications Programming in Smalltalk-80. How to Use
> Model-View-Controller. S. Burbeck, 1986, 1987.
> - G.E. Krasner, S.T. Pope. 'A Cookbook for Using the Model-View-Controller
> User Interface Paradigm in Smalltalk-80'. Joop, August/September, 1988.
> 
> I've been looking for detailed descriptions of implementations for
> reasonably complex GUI's requiring the use of multiple MVC's or other
> pattern methods. Some of the above touch on such concepts, but I'm looking
> for more detailed organizational descriptions. ie How/where to
> structure/divide up the functionality into the most effective sub-units,
> based on specific strategies, subcontrollers etc.
> 
> Can anyone point me to some papers, books, examples etc?
> 
> Also any comments on the best architectural patterns to implement complex
> GUI's and/or reasons for/against using MVC or others would be appreciated.
> I'm looking for implemention specifically suitable for Java swing and/or MS
> VC++ with multiple windows, documents, menus, controls including tabled GUI
> components.
> 
> Also any info on specific xUnit testing strategies would also be appreciated
> to suit this context.
> 
> Thanks in Advance.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Phil.
> 
>       
> 
> You have a good set of references.  I can't think of any others.
> A lot of Smalltalk tutorials have a section on MVC, but their
> examples tend to be small, and you are unlikely to learn anything
> from them.  But MVC is hard to learn from a book.  The best way
> to learn it is to use it.  However, the best way to use it is in
> Smalltalk, and you probably don't want to spend the time.  So, the
> next best thing is to describe your designs to some people who know
> MVC well and to get feedback from them.
> 
> I can say something about testing, however.  For most applications,
> the solution to testing the GUI is to put as little as possible in
> the GUI and to test the model, but not the GUI.  Often you can
> pop up a window and send messages directly to the model, and the
> views will respond by displaying things on the window.  The test
> will run so quickly that you won't be able to see whether the display
> is correct, but at least you will discover run-time errors.  If you
> make some new views then you will need to test them, and that is harder.
> Typically you compare bitmaps.  Comparing bitmaps is a bad idea for
> the whole GUI because changing the color or placement of a single button
> will break all your tests, but it is OK for a test of a single view class.
> 
> -Ralph
-- 
Murray Cumming
murray usa net
www.murrayc.com