Re: GtkAda vs Windex, Gwindows

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org>]

Pascal Obry <obry@act-europe.fr> writes:

> Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org> writes:
> 
> > I'm considering giving up on GtkAda for Windows development, and
> 
> Well that's not the moment to give up :) Gtk+ on Windows is maturing quickly
> and the 2.4.7 version is quite better than previous ones. Note also that the
> Gtk+Wimp (Native Windows look&feel) is now part of the Gtk+ project.

That's all good.

> Will this makes you stay on the GtkAda side ?

It doesn't address my issues.

The problems I'm having relate to basic issues of how signals and
events are propagated. I'm not paying for GtkAda support at work any
more, and I'm not getting good answers from the newsgroups/mailing
lists. I _really_ don't want to have to read the C code to find out
how things work, but that's what I'm stuck with.

For example, I can't figure out why an EventWindow doesn't respond to
a Focus event. (If you read the GtkAda mailing list, you've seen this
issue). The Gtk manuals are not clear on this topic, and neither the
GtkAda nor Gtk mailing lists have been much help. It's extremely
frustrating. When I write Ada code at home, it's for relaxation and
fun; I have a very low tolerance for frustration.

The lack of a good MDI is also a major stumbling block (no, I don't
like the GtkAda MDI; too buggy, and too hard to fix - I tried that
when I had support).

I _really_ like the auto-resizing features of Gtk, and the general
container design, and the ability to use 'tab' to move between
widgets. I'm sure it would take a lot of work to duplicate that in
Gwindows.

At the moment, I'm working on a card program. Robin's Cards (written
in Visual Basic 3, for Windows 3.1, for my wife - see
http://www.toadmail.com/~ada_wizard/robcards/robcard.html) finally
broke on Windows XP, so I need to rewrite it (in Ada, of course). I
had it partially done in Windex, so I finished it. It was remarkably
easy, compared to the struggles I've had with my GtkAda projects. On
the other hand, a card playing program only needs a drawing window for
bitblts, and a menu system; pretty basic.

I suspect when I try to do a more complex project in Gwindows, I'll
pine for some GtkAda features. But at least I'll be able to understand
_all_ the details of the code, if I need to.

> What I like in Ada is that the very same program can be compiled and
> run on different OS. So GtkAda seems very important to me!

I agree in principle. And if the core of Gtk was in Ada, I'd have no
problem committing to that.

I suppose I should try reading the C code, maybe it's not all that
bad. I'd feel better if I felt that others in the GtkAda community
shared my concerns.

At the same time, although I keep planning to get a Linux system to
"play with", it never seems worth it; Windows works well enough for
me, and I really don't have time to spend on two operating systems and
two GUI systems. I hate sounding like an ad for Microsoft, but it's
just the facts of life.

It may be that I'll only ever be happy with code I write myself - I
tend to be a perfectionist.

-- 
-- Stephe