On 11/20/14, 11:34 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
A possible solution for Tk is to replace the non-C Tcl parts of TK with Python (or the CPython API functions as needed for speed). I have no idea how horrendous a project creating Py/Tk would be.
It would be very horrendous. See Perl/Tk as the example. They ripped out the Tcl interpreter and interfaced directly with Tk's C API. The result was a rigid, inflexible binding that was never ported to the Mac (because it required a C implementation) and could never be easily updated to take advantage of new features in Tk, because again it required a C implementation. Perl-Tk still exists, but more modern bindings like ActiveState's Tkx module have restored the Tcl interpreter, giving you access to all Tk advances and platforms "for free."
Apart from the ease of updating Tk features, from a design standpoint I think this is the right call. There may be a little extra overhead in having an extra interpreter embedded, but that is what Tcl was originally designed for: embedding. It handles this requirement more easily and with less pain than most languages. I think that's why Tk became the default GUI binding of choice for other scripting languages.
--Kevin -- Kevin Walzer Code by Kevin/Mobile Code by Kevin http://www.codebykevin.com http://www.wtmobilesoftware.com -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
