Re: [MACTCL] Cocoa vs. Tk

[Tim J. <tj...@to...>]

On Jul 9, 2007, at 6:02 PM, Jerry LeVan wrote:

> On Jul 9, 2007, at 7:15 PM, Kevin Walzer wrote:
>
>>  From my perspective, it appears that a lot of code is needed in  
>> Cocoa
>> to implement what comes with Tk by default. Omitting the
>> "numberOfRowsInTableView" method from the tutorial application I'm
>> studying yields an application that builds, but includes a blank  
>> table
>> view. So the application requires it. Just as interestingly, the
>> "numberOfRowsInTableView" code appears to be just as necessary in a
>> scripting language that wraps Cocoa, such as Python, as from
>> Objective-C. Here's a snippet from a PyObjC sample application:
>>
>>    def numberOfRowsInTableView_(self, aTableView):
>> 	#do stuff here
>>
>> So, this brings me to a question:
>>
>> By what standard is Cocoa a "high-level" toolkit/framework-- 
>> especially
>> when compared to Tk?

Exactly the question I've been asking and never getting an answer.   
Everyone is quick to defend Objectionable C, but they seem to miss  
the point that learning the Cocoa components AND ObjC makes a move  
from C/C++ and Carbon, TCL/TK, Python/TK a very complex trip.

> Use whatever tools are available, learn whatever you can!
>
> This is advice from a guy who was *sure* Dec's VMS was going
> to conquer the world and live happily ever after.

Didn't it?  Didn't we?

> Tools come tools go...

Unfortunately, the Apple folks have decided that we MUST use Cocoa  
and ObjC.  Case in point - the deprecation of Java Cocoa bindings...

While I still use TCL for many scripting chores and Python for more  
complex non-GUI tasks, I've really stated to bank on REALbasic - OS  
X, Linux, and WIndows and the warts are pretty well covered in the  
latest version.  We're preparing to release a complex UI app and  
REALbasic has allowed us to use a single source tree to deliver on OS  
X, Linux, and Windows in multiple languages.

I still love TCL/TK and the work that Daniel, Jeff, and the myriad  
others are providing is definitely making things better for the OS X  
world, but for now, REALbasic for the UI and TCL, Python, and C for  
the helper apps provides a robust and native experience in the end  
result.

Tim
--
Tim Jones
tjmac at tolisgroup dot com