Re: table layout

[Vincent LADEUIL <v ladeuil alplog fr>]

> > > > > "Beast" == Beast  <beast i6x org> writes:

    Beast> Vincent LADEUIL wrote:
    >> All in all, in the last year I solve nearly all my layout
    >> problems with glade-only solutions (the glade files amount
    >> for around 10.000 lines in my current project).

    Beast> Seriously, is there any seriuos project written using
    Beast> gtk-perl? I found very little number of projects in SF
    Beast> or freshmeat, most of them are in alpha stage or left
    Beast> unmaintained.

The project I work on starts a second step right now.

The first step was to  address a problem with an obsolete graphic
library on Solaris (devguide).

My  client have  a debug  tool for  their PABX.  It was  written in
C/C++: around  400.000 lines  of code (count  80.000 for  GUI). 

I rewrote  it in  perl :  10.000 lines of  perl, 15.000  lines of
glade files (I  mix numbers in my previous  mail) and 1.200 lines
of online help).

You can re-read the numbers, takes into account that the original
tool was hacked during 10 years  by more than 30 devs (at various
times and paces) and was full of dead code (lots of PABX hardware
changes in  10 years).

The fact  remains: perl allows  to cut the  number of lines  by a
huge factor and  not only did gtk+ allows to  also cut the number
of lines  (even if  glade is more  verbose than devguide  was) it
also gives for free a bunch of functionalities which were totally
absent from the  first version (as an example  consider this: the
use of tool *requires* that  at each use, you specify a directory
where various needed  files resides, in the C  version you had to
*type* the path,  no file dialog, no copy/paste,  type, with your
fingers (but hey, that's what you get when you leaved developers
code for themselves in these days :)).

Now the question  was : is gtk used for a  serious project ? IMHO
yes :)

<soap>

And I  take the occasion to  thank again those who  have made the
perl  bindings: gtk+  is already  a modern  and  powerful graphic
library,  actively developed  and having  a strong  support from
some players in the field  (IBM, RedHat, Novell, HP, Sun, Debian,
FSF,   etc),  but   if  you   look  at   the  C   code   you  see
some...  contortions  are  needed  to *use*  the  object  related
features.

That's where the perl bindings  shine: gtk+ is full of properties
and behaviors inherited in the  object hierarchy and you can use
them  transparently (once  you know  how to  read the  doc*). And
don't get me start  on the fact that the C users  of gtk+ have to
handle the reference counting on all their objects...

I'm still amazed how nicely they fit with the rest of perl...

In September 20  years will have passed since  I began working in
IT. From time to  time I had to write GUIs.  I  have never seen a
better alternative than perl/gtk/glade.

My current  project began by a  study to determine  how to handle
the migration including the choosing  of a new graphic library, I
had already a preference for perl as a language but I didn't want
to impose it to the client.  The results were that gtk+ win hands
down  in  front  of   Tk  and  wxWindows  (for  various  specific
reasons). I have never regret those choices.

</soap>

        Vincent

*: Which is clearly explained: read the perl doc, when you missed
 some part, refer to the C one.

P.S.: Did I mention that there is a great support on this list ? 

P.P.S.: Did I mention that I profit a lot from it ? Including The
Fact that my postmaster thinks  he knows better on "How To Handle
Spam" and had the wonderful idea  that several '$' in a mail is a
*sure* indication  that it is  indeed spam. Fortunately,  he have
agreed that perl excerpts are  not spam and forward the mails one
or  two days  later after  checking them  personaly,  refusing to
white-list gtk-perl-list gnome org  ? Nice guy.  I am  so happy to
read  responses before  questions...  That  make  the respondents
look soooo smart :)