Re: Future with Ada

[James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net>]

Mark Lundquist wrote:
> 
> I think any true cross-platform GUI (regardless of implementation language)
> is not going to take the approach of building on top of Windows and Motif
> bindings and lifting out a "common denominator" subset.  Rather, it would
> bypass the Windows and Motif widget sets and go all the way down to pixels.
> Its internal architecture might have pervasive capabilities for emulating
> Motif of Windows LAF as much as possible, but it would be a stand-alone
> native GUI for running inside Windows frames or X-Windows clients.
> 
> As a matter of fact, a native GUI is the route that Java chose.  They could
> have tried to isolate a "common denominator" subset and then translated it
> to Windows or Motif bindings, which would have resulted in the problems you
> mention.  Instead they created a new native GUI that was supposed to look
> just as good on either platform.  The early versions were a qualified
> success -- they did look "just as good" on either platform, that is to say,
> not very good -- but things are better with Swing.

That is the route taken for the Java Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT).
In Java 2 the Java Foundation Classes were added. Among those classes
is the Swing GUI toolkit. Swing components are mostly implemented only
in Java. This allows programs to provide a consistent look and feel
across target platforms. It also provides a much slower GUI 
interaction due to the inherent performance problems of Java.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA