[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Having never used java or .NET I'm not sure what you're looking for.
There is a whole generation of computer users out there scared stiff of using the keyboard. Soon, computers will not have a keyboard at all. The trend is perhaps more pronounced among managers not writing code themselves, but "taking decisions" about which tools to use. The answer to these needs are so-called "RAD tools" like Borland Delphi, Visual Basic, Visual C# .NET, and perhaps Java's NetBeans. Instead of writing code, a "programmer" selects "components" from a menu, drags the component over a "form" and then drops it onto the "form". A form can e.g. be a web page, a GUI window or just an invisible abstract container in case the program doesn't have a visual interface. Components can be visual GUI widgets like buttons and sliders, but also "invisible" objects like files and sockets. Instead of creating a file by typing "open" one would "drag 'n drop" a "file component" from a menu onto the form, and then type in the name in some sort of "property menu" for the component. If one needs a tcp socket, one don't type "s = socket(...)" in the code but select an socket from a menu and drop it over a form. In order to do this, a RAD tool need some sort of standardised component model. Sure, it must be able to inspect the component, but also interpret the methods and members that it finds. The RAD tool must be able to inspect the model to find out what to "publish" in the property menu, what event it generates, etc. Typical component standards used for this is ActiveX (in Visual Basic), .NET in Visual C#, VCL in Delphi, and JavaBeans in NetBeans. If you build a component that does not follow the standard, the RAD tool can't use it. For example in JavaBeans, every pair of method that looks like "component.setSomething(...)" and "component.getSomething(...)" is parsed by the RAD tool as the property "Something" and put into the property meny for the component. The programmer can change the value of this property by typing into the property menu. The most extreme RAD tool is LabView, where no code is written at all, not even event handlers which are still hand coded in the other RAD tools. In labView, everything is "dragged and dropped", and the dropped components are connected by "cables" just like a circuit board. There are even "components" encapsulating for and while loops. If you need a while loop, you drop a while loop onto the form. If you need a subroutine, you drop a subroutine onto the form, etc. Nothing is typed. Does Python need a standard component model like ActiveX, VCL, .NET or JavaBeans? First, there are GUI designer's for Python. These include GLADE, QT Designer and wxGlade. We don't need a Python object model to support GUI designers. Second, are we really that scared of writing code? Some obviously are. Why is dropping a socket component preferred over typing "socket"? Those that want LabView or Visual Basic knows where to find it. Python already has "properties". What Python don't have is "events", but that can be easily implemented (and is implemented in all GUI toolkits) e.g. using exceptions and references to functions. En event can be raised by raising an exception. Perhaps we should define an standard "event" interface just to shut them up? Then we have a "component model". -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
