GTK++ proposal

[karlmail usa net]

I would like to commend all the authors of the GIMP 
and GTK+ for creating an excellent widget set for 
the X Window System. Great work guys! 
The free software community benefits greatly from 
your efforts. :-) 

Below are some thoughts that you may want to consider. 

After the original GTK toolkit evolved to the GTK+ 
toolkit, which added object oriented principles to 
the C language, I feel that now is the right time to 
go one step further - GTK++ - a C++ version of GTK+. 

Before I say more, I realise that people are working 
at creating bindings for C++, and other bindings exist 
for many other languages as well, however, I believe 
that many of the bindings created break the original 
aims of GTK+ - to be a fast, small and efficient 
toolkit for programming the X Window System. 
Many bindings created thus far are either extremely 
criptic, add unrequired code bulk, or are lacking in 
features found in GTK+. 

A C++ version would greatly simplify the learning curve 
of the toolkit, especially in creating new widgets for 
the library. Theme support for example could be added 
simply by deriving new classes for each widget 
containing a modified virtual draw function. 

I realise that it would put back GTK+ development a 
while, but the ease at which it would be to program 
using an object-oriented toolkit in C++ rather than 
in C would in my opinion be worth the hard work. 

I am in no way trying to tarnish the image of GTK+. 
I am simply trying to extend it by thinking towards 
the future. 

I am extremely eager for the GTK+ authors to agree 
to this proposal. Perhaps we could have a GTK+ and 
GTK++ toolkit evolving with similar features 
simultaneously, so that programmers have a real 
choice, and so development of more quality free 
software can continue without language barriers, 
while keeping the GIMP programmers cooking at 
what they do so well. 

Your thoughts, criticisms and concerns would be 
greatly appreciated. I would also be very willing 
to contribute to this work, but I can't do it alone! 
I feel that many other programmers would be happy to 
help. Perhaps the Gtk-- and VDK authors could 
chip in too! 

  Karol - karlmail@usa.net 


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