Programming Languages For X Applications

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Programming Languages For X Applications

Bart Massey, an X.Org Foundation Board of Directors member and Portland State University employee, shared his opinions this week on programming languages for X applications and the web vs. the desktop...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE5MDc

[mybug]

Great talk!
I still remember the day I wrote my first GUI app using WINAPI in C++, so much effort for something that should normally be simple.

[F i L]

This is why I like D. Convenience + Power/Efficiency. Still needs work though (better GC, ARM support, etc)

[Ex-Cyber]

I don't see how he ever actually made the case for the focus on languages (though I skipped some of the Q&A). Basically, a lot of his explanations come off to me as "someone wrote a problematic toolkit in/for <language> that became popular, therefore we should abandon <language> for desktop application development". It's not as though GTK+ or Qt represent the height of elegantly idiomatic C or C++. Had that been the case, I think his point would have made a lot more sense as stated.

[RealNC]

Well, he is an academic. Those are among the most misinformed people I know of, to the point of being completely detached from actual reality.

[Linuxhippy]

Well, he is an academic. Those are among the most misinformed people I know of, to the point of being completely detached from actual reality.

Although I really didn't get the conclusion of the talk (except that the choice of PL does matter of course), I just have to agree with him: GTK+ is a pain in the ass.
Its also one of the reasons so little development (and optimizations - every GTK release since 1.2 has only gotten slower) happens inside of GTK+ itself, its just plain hard - adding a single public method requires the developer to add code to about ~4 different places, just because they still stick to C and emulate object orientation by abusing macros and structurs.

[Detructor]

Well, he is an academic. Those are among the most misinformed people I know of, to the point of being completely detached from actual reality.

well, I didn't saw the videos but...everyone who writes a GUI based program in C or C++ should be thrown into a desert, far away from any technology so that he can't do any further damage to humanity.

[d2kx]

Please help me out here. To sum up the above comments:

Gtk+ sucks.
C/C++ for desktop applications sucks (Qt uses C++).

So what shall we do?

[RealNC]

well, I didn't saw the videos but...everyone who writes a GUI based program in C or C++ should be thrown into a desert, far away from any technology so that he can't do any further damage to humanity.

Yeah, right. I have a project with a 300.000 line code base (low level, performance-critical stuff), in C++. Throwing-in the GUI in C++/Qt which takes about 4000 lines of code is the *least* work. It's even almost trivial, so why even bother with anything else.

I stand by my "detached from reality" comment.

I only agree that writing GUIs in C is somewhat awkward. And besides, doing GUIs in C++ feels very natural. As if that's how the universe intended it to be.

[alexThunder]

Well, he is an academic. Those are among the most misinformed people I know of, to the point of being completely detached from actual reality.

What kind of people do you think, actually created computers, the internet and everything else required for you, to write that?

Hint: Not the farmers.