On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 2:56 AM, rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote: > It is very rare to need to "bang out" hundreds of lines of code to > replace a mouse click interface. If properly designed a good API can > compete with a GUI. In far less time than it takes me to scroll down a > list of widgets, pick the appropriate one, drag it across the screen, > tinker with it's absolute position, and set some attributes, i could > have typed Widget(parent, **kw).geometry(blah, blah) and been done. >
Point to ponder: Human beings tend to memorize names better than images from long lists. Most widgets have names as well as appearances (although it's arguable that the appearance is more what the widget _is_, and the name is somewhat arbitrary), although in some cases there's odd pairings - some toolkits merge Radio Button and Check Box/Button into a single object, others call them two different things. To find the widget you need, you must either scroll a long list and pick the one you want, or key in - possibly with autocompletion assistance - the name. Which is easier to memorize? Which is easier to explain? I'd always rather work with the name. And even with the most point-and-clicky of interface designers, it's normal to be able to see the names of the objects you're working with. The one time where point and click is majorly superior to scripted design is with pixel positioning of widgets. You can drag things around until you're artistically happy with them, rather than have to fiddle with the numbers in code. That's how I learned to code GUIs, but when I started doing cross-platform work and discovered rule-based layouts (where you put objects in boxes and lay out the boxes in order, etc), suddenly life got a LOT easier. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
