java-gnome-developer

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jeffrey M. <Jef...@Br...>]

> hi, 
>   I was just wondering about the current development status of
> Java-Gnome - how many people are working on it at the moment, 
> are there
> any areas which particularly need help, etc.

I am the only one working on the bindings.  I could definitely
use help on several areas of the project.

> 
> From my dabbling with with code from CVS, most of the Gtk2 stuff seems
> done, apart from the documentation. If this is simply a case of adding
> things like (comment (GtkWidget is the base class of all widgets.)) to
> the defs files; and the comments mostly being copied from Gtk
> documentation; then I would like to volounteer to help.

There are two areas that still need work on the bindings
themselves.  They are the GtkTreeView/Model related classes
and the new Gtk Stock objects.  I am currently working on
the tree/model classes.  Also, as you have stated, the def
files should be updated with useful comments, documentation
needs to be updated and the examples also need updating.  I
would welcome any help you might be able to provide.

-Jeff

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jeffrey M. <Jef...@Br...>]

> Is there a possible synergy between Java/Gnome and IBM-SWT library
> (eclipse.org)? What's Java-Gnome position (technically and
> strategically) regarding IBM-SWT/JFace, which seems to run well on
> Gnome2.0 ? 

There is a lot of synergy between these projects.  In fact, I am
currently working on the SWT project at the same time as working
on java-gnome.  There are a few problems with SWT that are being 
addressed.  They are:

* SWT uses the GTK 1.x tree and list widgets (SWT team is working on this)
* SWT uses the GTK 1.x text widget (I am working on this)
* SWT/GTK does not have a consistent approach for NLS (SWT team is working
  on this)
* SWT relies on being able to utilize z-order.  GTK doesn't support z-order.
  The fix that was put in place is probably contributing to poor
performance.
  (This is an issue that I intend to bring up at this week's GNOME Summit)
* The SWT and GTK model for Composite/Child (SWT) and Container/Child (GTK)
  are very different.  As a result, SWT/GTK was forced to introduce hacks
  to handle widget sizing and positioning.  This is contributing to the poor
  performance.  (I also hope to bring this up at the GNOME Summit)
* SWT doesn't have close to full coverage of the APIs that are provided by
  GTK.  SWT also doesn't provide any coverage for the GNOME APIs. (See my
  proposed solution below)

I intended to wait until my next release to put a proposal out to the
community but since you have touch on this topic I think I will do it now.
SWT will continue to mature at a rate that is much faster than java-gnome
due to the fact that IBM/OTI has full-time resources working on it.
Also, due to the fact that SWT runs natively on several platforms it will
gather much greater industry support.  At a low level, the way SWT is
accessing
the native peers is superior to the approach taken by java-gnome.  It would 
appear that SWT would be an ideal choice for somebody wanting to write a 
java application that will run on GTK.  You would also have the added
ability 
to support Motif, Win32, OSX Carbon, and other platforms.

The primary problem with SWT is that it is not currently intended to be
a complete/robust GUI framework.  Not all widgets supported on the host
operating systems are supported on SWT.  Also, although JFace does provide
some higher-level facilities it is primary focused on providing a framework
for the eclipse platform.  At the same time, java-gnome attempts to map
directly to the underlying APIs provided by GTK and GNOME.  This makes
the java-gnome class library huge and very complex to use. A higher-level 
object-oriented API is needed in order to make java-gnome really viable.

My proposal is for a new project (or a significant morph of java-gnome).
This new project would use SWT as it's foundation and would address the 
above mentioned issues.  This new project would not only focus on GTK.  
It would also provide support for Motif and Win32 (possibly others).  
Perhaps over time some of the code produced by this new project could 
be incorporated into SWT and some of it would stay independent of SWT.  

A proposed task list to start the project follows:

1) Identify lead developer for each of the platforms:
   GTK - Jeff Morgan
   Motif - ??
   Win32 - ??

2) Define the new API and create an object model to be presented to the
   community:
   -I have spent a lot of time this year studying various GUI frameworks
(QT, 
    GTK, Motif, MFC).  I would like to begin a discussion with the
developers 
    on this new project to decide what functions should be included in this
    new GUI framework.  Perhaps it would be a combination of the best
features 
    of several of the mentioned frameworks.  The result of this discussion 
    would be an object model and a plan for development.  These artifacts
    would then be presented to the community at large for comments and 
    suggestions.
3) Once the design and plan are finalized create begin the effort.

> Do you know what Sun strategy is regarding Java integration into Gnome
> (Solaris will use Gnome as Desktop Environnement, but then which
> language will Sun recommend to build GUIs - as far as Swing 
> is obviously
> not fast enough to build advanced smooth GUIs ?

Sun would have to answer this question.  At one time there was
much discussion about providing GTK peers for AWT.  I don't know
where this discussion went.


I would be very interested in hearing from the users of java-gnome
about the proposal put forth above.  Although it is a significant
departure from the current direction of this project I would be
interested in your views if it is the correct direction.

-Jeff

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Almotasim <alm...@no...>]

Tks for your answers.=20
I'm happy to read that there's a lot of synergy between Java-Gnome and
SWT as I was fearing that too many similar-but-not-really-compatible
projects were being developped.=20

I have several remarks and questions divided below in remarks regarding
strategy and remarks concering technical points.=20

1) Strategy=20

Is it so much useful to maintain Windows+Motif support ? Gnome on the
desktop is making huge progress, whereas Windows doesn't innovate much
and is therefore liable, in my opinion, to disappear in the mid-term (5
years?), because the system itself is conceptually too poor to compete
with the various OS that the open-source community + companies like IBM
or Sun have coded in the last 20 years.=20

2) Conception/technical points=20

>A higher-level object-oriented API is needed in order to make
>java-gnome really viable.=20
I think that's a very good idea to build a high-level OO GUI-API
gathering the best features of Swing, Gtk, Qt, MFC + more (I actually
thought at first it was already part of the Eclipse project). The key
point probably relies on the community such a project is able to gather;
I believe many engineering schools (such as http://www.emn.fr/ in
France, which works closely with OTI) would be interested in joining the
project both at a research level and at a coding effort level; hopefully
OTI team would also participate strongly, making the "high-level API"
more quickly available for commercial-apps use. I guess the industry
will need more and more advanced widgets, such as hyperbolic trees
(http://treebolic.sortilege.net), smart tables like those in Gnumeric,
advanced visualition tools etc., hence the availability of such an API
could help the industry working better.=20

Which language in the mid-term for OO programming: Java, Python, C++ ?
Is there any reason to keep using so many very close languages instead
of focusing on theorical problems related to OO programming?
(meta-objects protocols, automatic components assembling etc.). I'd be
happy to know what Ximian developpers think about the OO language
question, as they're making very good apps based on C/Gtk and Bonobo.
Java is a cool language but I'm wondering sometimes if these guys are
not going to produce a new LGPL Java-like language. I believe Java
should now be released in true open-source, so that designers and
developers from all companies could focus on a cooperative effort,
without developing so many language-gateways (of course diversity is
very important but here it looks like there is no real conceptual
difference between Java, C++, Python, etc., or is there?).=20

One last remark: Gnu/Linux is still missing the game in the games
software area; it's obvious that encouraging the development of games on
Linux could help creating collectively advanced high-level generic
OO-APIs for open-source graphical environnements ("intelligent" games as
far as possible of course).=20

Regards=20

Almo=20





Le lun 15/07/2002 =E0 16:54, Jeffrey Morgan a =E9crit :=20
> > Is there a possible synergy between Java/Gnome and IBM-SWT library
> > (eclipse.org)? What's Java-Gnome position (technically and
> > strategically) regarding IBM-SWT/JFace, which seems to run well on
> > Gnome2.0 ?=20
>=20
> There is a lot of synergy between these projects.  In fact, I am
> currently working on the SWT project at the same time as working
> on java-gnome.  There are a few problems with SWT that are being=20
> addressed.  They are:
>=20
> * SWT uses the GTK 1.x tree and list widgets (SWT team is working on this=
)
> * SWT uses the GTK 1.x text widget (I am working on this)
> * SWT/GTK does not have a consistent approach for NLS (SWT team is workin=
g
>   on this)
> * SWT relies on being able to utilize z-order.  GTK doesn't support z-ord=
er.
>   The fix that was put in place is probably contributing to poor
> performance.
>   (This is an issue that I intend to bring up at this week's GNOME Summit=
)
> * The SWT and GTK model for Composite/Child (SWT) and Container/Child (GT=
K)
>   are very different.  As a result, SWT/GTK was forced to introduce hacks
>   to handle widget sizing and positioning.  This is contributing to the p=
oor
>   performance.  (I also hope to bring this up at the GNOME Summit)
> * SWT doesn't have close to full coverage of the APIs that are provided b=
y
>   GTK.  SWT also doesn't provide any coverage for the GNOME APIs. (See my
>   proposed solution below)
>=20
> I intended to wait until my next release to put a proposal out to the
> community but since you have touch on this topic I think I will do it now=
.
> SWT will continue to mature at a rate that is much faster than java-gnome
> due to the fact that IBM/OTI has full-time resources working on it.
> Also, due to the fact that SWT runs natively on several platforms it will
> gather much greater industry support.  At a low level, the way SWT is
> accessing
> the native peers is superior to the approach taken by java-gnome.  It wou=
ld=20
> appear that SWT would be an ideal choice for somebody wanting to write a=20
> java application that will run on GTK.  You would also have the added
> ability=20
> to support Motif, Win32, OSX Carbon, and other platforms.
>=20
> The primary problem with SWT is that it is not currently intended to be
> a complete/robust GUI framework.  Not all widgets supported on the host
> operating systems are supported on SWT.  Also, although JFace does provid=
e
> some higher-level facilities it is primary focused on providing a framewo=
rk
> for the eclipse platform.  At the same time, java-gnome attempts to map
> directly to the underlying APIs provided by GTK and GNOME.  This makes
> the java-gnome class library huge and very complex to use. A higher-level=
=20
> object-oriented API is needed in order to make java-gnome really viable.
>=20
> My proposal is for a new project (or a significant morph of java-gnome).
> This new project would use SWT as it's foundation and would address the=20
> above mentioned issues.  This new project would not only focus on GTK. =20
> It would also provide support for Motif and Win32 (possibly others). =20
> Perhaps over time some of the code produced by this new project could=20
> be incorporated into SWT and some of it would stay independent of SWT. =20
>=20
> A proposed task list to start the project follows:
>=20
> 1) Identify lead developer for each of the platforms:
>    GTK - Jeff Morgan
>    Motif - ??
>    Win32 - ??
>=20
> 2) Define the new API and create an object model to be presented to the
>    community:
>    -I have spent a lot of time this year studying various GUI frameworks
> (QT,=20
>     GTK, Motif, MFC).  I would like to begin a discussion with the
> developers=20
>     on this new project to decide what functions should be included in th=
is
>     new GUI framework.  Perhaps it would be a combination of the best
> features=20
>     of several of the mentioned frameworks.  The result of this discussio=
n=20
>     would be an object model and a plan for development.  These artifacts
>     would then be presented to the community at large for comments and=20
>     suggestions.
> 3) Once the design and plan are finalized create begin the effort.
>=20
> > Do you know what Sun strategy is regarding Java integration into Gnome
> > (Solaris will use Gnome as Desktop Environnement, but then which
> > language will Sun recommend to build GUIs - as far as Swing=20
> > is obviously
> > not fast enough to build advanced smooth GUIs ?
>=20
> Sun would have to answer this question.  At one time there was
> much discussion about providing GTK peers for AWT.  I don't know
> where this discussion went.
>=20
>=20
> I would be very interested in hearing from the users of java-gnome
> about the proposal put forth above.  Although it is a significant
> departure from the current direction of this project I would be
> interested in your views if it is the correct direction.
>=20
> -Jeff

Re: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Clemens E. <Lin...@we...>]

Hi again!

>Which language in the mid-term for OO programming: Java, Python, C++ ?
>Is there any reason to keep using so many very close languages instead
>of focusing on theorical problems related to OO programming?
>(meta-objects protocols, automatic components assembling etc.). I'd be
>happy to know what Ximian developpers think about the OO language
>question, as they're making very good apps based on C/Gtk and Bonobo.
>Java is a cool language but I'm wondering sometimes if these guys are
>not going to produce a new LGPL Java-like language. I believe Java
>should now be released in true open-source, so that designers and
>developers from all companies could focus on a cooperative effort,
>without developing so many language-gateways (of course diversity is
>very important but here it looks like there is no real conceptual
>difference between Java, C++, Python, etc., or is there?).
>
Yes, this is probably a problem with openSource. But its nice for the 
developers. Each developer has his favourite language, and wants to 
develop with it. This is not so good for users (Look in /usr/lib :-( )
Yeah, there are some OpenSource Java-vm's. The most popular one is kaffe 
www.kaffe.org , but it isnt fully java2-compatible (Althought my fancy 
code runs on it). The biggest problem is that swing isnt supported at 
all . Java-GTK is supported, JIT  is not the fastest.
The second one is gcj. Its a native java-frontend to the famous gcc. It 
compiles java-code to natve binaries, wich are about 2x faster than 
interpreted code (First run of a loop) but much slower compared to code 
in jit (the loop looped some iterations). This is, because gcj does all 
heap-allocations with the os, not with its own memory-managemens (like sun).
The most importat project is the GNU-Classpath-Project. It tries to make 
a clean-room (without sun-code) Implementation of sun`s classes that can 
be used by all the GPLd VMs.

The biggest problem of those opensource-solutions is, that SWING isnt 
supported at all. Thats why I'm using Java-GTK. Of cource, its hard to 
port existing code to such opensource-vm's, but any code developed on an 
Opensource-vm should also run under the Sun-Vm. I developed my 
wine-configurator with those opensource-tools and I used the 
JDK1.2.2-Apidoks from sun. Except from the swing-packages I didn't miss 
any class or method.

> 
>
>One last remark: Gnu/Linux is still missing the game in the games
>software area; it's obvious that encouraging the development of games on
>Linux could help creating collectively advanced high-level generic
>OO-APIs for open-source graphical environnements ("intelligent" games as
>far as possible of course). 
>
Yeah, and I think that will never come. Too many people think that their 
stuff is the best (Look at java-gtk, it isn't very common and some 
people use it althought the user will have o compile libs...)
Trolltechs QT is very near to such a game of the games, but it stands 
under GPL and if you want to code a commercial app, you'll have to pay 
royalities. GTK's C interface is really terrible, and you'll need much 
libs to do all the stuff which is included in QT.

But I think this should be discussed in a development-forum.

cu Linuxhippy

>
>Regards 
>
>Almo 
>
>
>
>
>
>Le lun 15/07/2002 à 16:54, Jeffrey Morgan a écrit : 
>  
>
>>>Is there a possible synergy between Java/Gnome and IBM-SWT library
>>>(eclipse.org)? What's Java-Gnome position (technically and
>>>strategically) regarding IBM-SWT/JFace, which seems to run well on
>>>Gnome2.0 ? 
>>>      
>>>
>>There is a lot of synergy between these projects.  In fact, I am
>>currently working on the SWT project at the same time as working
>>on java-gnome.  There are a few problems with SWT that are being 
>>addressed.  They are:
>>
>>* SWT uses the GTK 1.x tree and list widgets (SWT team is working on this)
>>* SWT uses the GTK 1.x text widget (I am working on this)
>>* SWT/GTK does not have a consistent approach for NLS (SWT team is working
>>  on this)
>>* SWT relies on being able to utilize z-order.  GTK doesn't support z-order.
>>  The fix that was put in place is probably contributing to poor
>>performance.
>>  (This is an issue that I intend to bring up at this week's GNOME Summit)
>>* The SWT and GTK model for Composite/Child (SWT) and Container/Child (GTK)
>>  are very different.  As a result, SWT/GTK was forced to introduce hacks
>>  to handle widget sizing and positioning.  This is contributing to the poor
>>  performance.  (I also hope to bring this up at the GNOME Summit)
>>* SWT doesn't have close to full coverage of the APIs that are provided by
>>  GTK.  SWT also doesn't provide any coverage for the GNOME APIs. (See my
>>  proposed solution below)
>>
>>I intended to wait until my next release to put a proposal out to the
>>community but since you have touch on this topic I think I will do it now.
>>SWT will continue to mature at a rate that is much faster than java-gnome
>>due to the fact that IBM/OTI has full-time resources working on it.
>>Also, due to the fact that SWT runs natively on several platforms it will
>>gather much greater industry support.  At a low level, the way SWT is
>>accessing
>>the native peers is superior to the approach taken by java-gnome.  It would 
>>appear that SWT would be an ideal choice for somebody wanting to write a 
>>java application that will run on GTK.  You would also have the added
>>ability 
>>to support Motif, Win32, OSX Carbon, and other platforms.
>>
>>The primary problem with SWT is that it is not currently intended to be
>>a complete/robust GUI framework.  Not all widgets supported on the host
>>operating systems are supported on SWT.  Also, although JFace does provide
>>some higher-level facilities it is primary focused on providing a framework
>>for the eclipse platform.  At the same time, java-gnome attempts to map
>>directly to the underlying APIs provided by GTK and GNOME.  This makes
>>the java-gnome class library huge and very complex to use. A higher-level 
>>object-oriented API is needed in order to make java-gnome really viable.
>>
>>My proposal is for a new project (or a significant morph of java-gnome).
>>This new project would use SWT as it's foundation and would address the 
>>above mentioned issues.  This new project would not only focus on GTK.  
>>It would also provide support for Motif and Win32 (possibly others).  
>>Perhaps over time some of the code produced by this new project could 
>>be incorporated into SWT and some of it would stay independent of SWT.  
>>
>>A proposed task list to start the project follows:
>>
>>1) Identify lead developer for each of the platforms:
>>   GTK - Jeff Morgan
>>   Motif - ??
>>   Win32 - ??
>>
>>2) Define the new API and create an object model to be presented to the
>>   community:
>>   -I have spent a lot of time this year studying various GUI frameworks
>>(QT, 
>>    GTK, Motif, MFC).  I would like to begin a discussion with the
>>developers 
>>    on this new project to decide what functions should be included in this
>>    new GUI framework.  Perhaps it would be a combination of the best
>>features 
>>    of several of the mentioned frameworks.  The result of this discussion 
>>    would be an object model and a plan for development.  These artifacts
>>    would then be presented to the community at large for comments and 
>>    suggestions.
>>3) Once the design and plan are finalized create begin the effort.
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Do you know what Sun strategy is regarding Java integration into Gnome
>>>(Solaris will use Gnome as Desktop Environnement, but then which
>>>language will Sun recommend to build GUIs - as far as Swing 
>>>is obviously
>>>not fast enough to build advanced smooth GUIs ?
>>>      
>>>
>>Sun would have to answer this question.  At one time there was
>>much discussion about providing GTK peers for AWT.  I don't know
>>where this discussion went.
>>
>>
>>I would be very interested in hearing from the users of java-gnome
>>about the proposal put forth above.  Although it is a significant
>>departure from the current direction of this project I would be
>>interested in your views if it is the correct direction.
>>
>>-Jeff
>>    
>>
>
>
>
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>

Re: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jan B. <j.b...@tu...>]

Am 2002.07.15 23:09 schrieb(en) Almotasim:
> 
> 2) Conception/technical points
> 
> >A higher-level object-oriented API is needed in order to make
> >java-gnome really viable.
> I think that's a very good idea to build a high-level OO GUI-API
> gathering the best features of Swing, Gtk, Qt, MFC + more (I actually
> thought at first it was already part of the Eclipse project). The key
> point probably relies on the community such a project is able to
> gather;

But there are also some drawbacks with higher-level APIs: you have
to reduce the feature-set to become portable and the higher-level api's
are often much slower than the low-level toolkit-wrapping APIs.

This is the problem that smalltalk implementations have since years. All
the gui-toolkits are incompatible although the most of them are using 
the
same ideas like MVC.

The industry is paying attention when the toolkit is nearly complete 
(you
are supporting all widgets) and if it is fast. They are not interested 
if
it is too slow but has a sophisticated API. You must always remeber that
in most commercial situations not the programmers are the deciders but
the project leaders which are often non-programmers.

Regards,
Jan

Re: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jeffrey M. <ku...@zo...>]

On Mon, 2002-07-15 at 17:02, Jan Blunck wrote:
> 
> But there are also some drawbacks with higher-level APIs: you have
> to reduce the feature-set to become portable and the higher-level api's
> are often much slower than the low-level toolkit-wrapping APIs.
> 
> This is the problem that smalltalk implementations have since years. All
> the gui-toolkits are incompatible although the most of them are using 
> the
> same ideas like MVC.
> 
> The industry is paying attention when the toolkit is nearly complete 
> (you
> are supporting all widgets) and if it is fast. They are not interested 
> if
> it is too slow but has a sophisticated API. You must always remeber that
> in most commercial situations not the programmers are the deciders but
> the project leaders which are often non-programmers.

Is it possible to provide a well designed API that provides both the
high level abstractions that make GUI development simpler while at the
same time providing the speed and flexibility that are needed?

-Jeff

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jeffrey M. <Jef...@Br...>]

> I dont understand the sence of such a project. Its like "Hey,let us 
> build an MFC-Clone on the top of MFC".

That is one way to look at it.  Another view is that there will be 
more applications developed using SWT that will target Win32.  With
this approach, all of those applications will immediately run on
GTK platforms.

> But it would be a good idea , in that case we would have a strong 
> "partner" (IBM).
> 
> This things are very important for this project:
> 
> 1. A good gui-builder. (Maybe we could use a modifies 
> glade/libglade). I 
> love the way that java-gtk does!

There are already discussions going on about providing a GUI
builder for SWT that uses XML formats.  If SWT becomes as popular
as I think it might there will be several GUI builders available.
Again, we would be able to leverage the work done by IBM and others.

> 2. Garbage-Collection! The SWT-strategy is against java-standards.

This is an issue.  SWT does cause the developer to clean up some
of their own resources.  I don't see this changing anytime soon.

> 3. Clean, clear Interface. (Like Java-GTK)
> 
> I'm not good at coding but I would be able to produce some german and 
> english doks.
> 
> > I would be very interested in hearing from the users of java-gnome
> > about the proposal put forth above.  Although it is a significant
> > departure from the current direction of this project I would be
> > interested in your views if it is the correct direction.
> >
> Jeff, you are such a good coder, i think everything you start will be 
> such good as java-gtk.
> Good luck!
> 
> Mfg Linuxhippy
> 
> > -Jeff
> >
> 
> 
> 

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jeffrey M. <Jef...@Br...>]

> Tks for your answers. 
> I'm happy to read that there's a lot of synergy between Java-Gnome and
> SWT as I was fearing that too many similar-but-not-really-compatible
> projects were being developped. 
> 
> I have several remarks and questions divided below in remarks 
> regarding
> strategy and remarks concering technical points. 
> 
> 1) Strategy 
> 
> Is it so much useful to maintain Windows+Motif support ? Gnome on the
> desktop is making huge progress, whereas Windows doesn't innovate much
> and is therefore liable, in my opinion, to disappear in the 
> mid-term (5
> years?), because the system itself is conceptually too poor to compete
> with the various OS that the open-source community + 
> companies like IBM
> or Sun have coded in the last 20 years. 

It is not necessary to support Windows and Motif.  I believe it would be
useful to do so.  If SWT becomes a popular GUI toolkit many companies will
use it to develop applications that target Win32.  These applications will
be able to run immediately on GTK platforms.  Also, this makes it much
easier
for open-source applications to provide Windows ports.  In this way, the
Windows users will begin to be exposed to the great work that is taking
place in the open-source community.


> 2) Conception/technical points 
> 
> >A higher-level object-oriented API is needed in order to make
> >java-gnome really viable. 
> I think that's a very good idea to build a high-level OO GUI-API
> gathering the best features of Swing, Gtk, Qt, MFC + more (I actually
> thought at first it was already part of the Eclipse project). The key
> point probably relies on the community such a project is able 
> to gather;

I couldn't agree more.

> I believe many engineering schools (such as http://www.emn.fr/ in
> France, which works closely with OTI) would be interested in 
> joining the
> project both at a research level and at a coding effort 
> level; hopefully
> OTI team would also participate strongly, making the "high-level API"
> more quickly available for commercial-apps use. I guess the industry
> will need more and more advanced widgets, such as hyperbolic trees
> (http://treebolic.sortilege.net), smart tables like those in Gnumeric,
> advanced visualition tools etc., hence the availability of such an API
> could help the industry working better. 

I will be talking to OTI about this proposal very soon.  I am sure
they will be prohibited from direct involvement in the project but
they very likely would be interested in providing moral support 8-)
I am also going to float some of this idea to the core GTK/GNOME
developers at this weeks GNOME Summit.  I'll post my results on
this list.  Anybody interested in helping with some of the initial
planning is welcome.
 
> Which language in the mid-term for OO programming: Java, Python, C++ ?
> Is there any reason to keep using so many very close languages instead
> of focusing on theorical problems related to OO programming?

This is a very interesting topic.  I think solving the problems related
to providing a good OO programming paradigm for GUI development should
be the first step.  That is why I proposed first working on design related
issues.  Beyond this initial design effort, the structure of SWT would make
it
very easy/possible to provide the interface via additional languages.
SWT is structured as follows (if you can excuse the crude drawing):

  +------------+
  |   SWT API  |  - Written in Java
  +------------+
  |  PEER GLUE |  - Written in Java
  +------------+
  |    JNI     |  - Written in C
  +------------+
  | NATIVE PEER|
  +------------+

It is not a stretch to envision the following:

      +-------------------+
  C++ |      SWT API      |  Java - Same public API for both languages
      +-------------------+
      | C++  |  PEER GLUE |  Java
  C++ | GLUE +------------+
      | CODE |    JNI     |  C
      |      |------------+
      |      | NATIVE PEER|
      +------+------------+

The public C++ API could be almost identical to the public
Java API and could leverage the work already completed in
providing the native peer interface.  I am not proposing this
as part of the proposed project but it is an interesting idea.

> I'd be
> happy to know what Ximian developpers think about the OO language
> question, as they're making very good apps based on C/Gtk and Bonobo.

Ximian will be using C# once their C# compiler/environment is mature.

> Java is a cool language but I'm wondering sometimes if these guys are
> not going to produce a new LGPL Java-like language. I believe Java
> should now be released in true open-source, so that designers and
> developers from all companies could focus on a cooperative effort,
> without developing so many language-gateways (of course diversity is
> very important but here it looks like there is no real conceptual
> difference between Java, C++, Python, etc., or is there?). 
> 
> One last remark: Gnu/Linux is still missing the game in the games
> software area; it's obvious that encouraging the development 
> of games on
> Linux could help creating collectively advanced high-level generic
> OO-APIs for open-source graphical environnements 
> ("intelligent" games as
> far as possible of course). 
> 
> Regards 
> 
> Almo 
> 
> 

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Almotasim <alm...@no...>]

 
> It is not necessary to support Windows and Motif.  I believe it would be
> useful to do so.  If SWT becomes a popular GUI toolkit many companies will
> use it to develop applications that target Win32.  These applications will
> be able to run immediately on GTK platforms.  Also, this makes it much
> easier
> for open-source applications to provide Windows ports.  In this way, the
> Windows users will begin to be exposed to the great work that is taking
> place in the open-source community.

ok, I think you're right: it's worth building windows 
on the open-source community, so that people can *see* the whole thing, before
diving into it!

> I will be talking to OTI about this proposal very soon.  I am sure
> they will be prohibited from direct involvement in the project but
> they very likely would be interested in providing moral support 8-)
> I am also going to float some of this idea to the core GTK/GNOME
> developers at this weeks GNOME Summit.  I'll post my results on
> this list.  Anybody interested in helping with some of the initial
> planning is welcome.

I might be helping by talking of the project to engineering schools
where researchers and/or students might help, particularly in EMN
http://www.emn.fr or in ENST: http://www.infres.enst.fr/~elc/


> The public C++ API could be almost identical to the public
> Java API and could leverage the work already completed in
> providing the native peer interface.  

sounds great.

> Ximian will be using C# once their C# compiler/environment is mature.
ok, that's astonishing (to me).

I'll let you know about my contacts in engineering schools.
Do you know if Olivier Gnutknecht is still on the ride
http://www.lirmm.fr/~gutkneco/devpt/javagnome.html ?

Regards
Almo

A pointer towards something different that you might have read already,
which is also about designing open windows on the world: 
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0207.thompson.html

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Jeffrey M. <Jef...@Br...>]

> I might be helping by talking of the project to engineering schools
> where researchers and/or students might help, particularly in EMN
> http://www.emn.fr or in ENST: http://www.infres.enst.fr/~elc/

Thanks

> 
> I'll let you know about my contacts in engineering schools.
> Do you know if Olivier Gnutknecht is still on the ride
> http://www.lirmm.fr/~gutkneco/devpt/javagnome.html ?

He hasn't been involved for nearly 2 years.

RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Development Status

[Almotasim <alm...@no...>]

Is there a possible synergy between Java/Gnome and IBM-SWT library
(eclipse.org)? What's Java-Gnome position (technically and
strategically) regarding IBM-SWT/JFace, which seems to run well on
Gnome2.0 ?=20

Do you know what Sun strategy is regarding Java integration into Gnome
(Solaris will use Gnome as Desktop Environnement, but then which
language will Sun recommend to build GUIs - as far as Swing is obviously
not fast enough to build advanced smooth GUIs ?

Regards,

Almo



Le lun 15/07/2002 =E0 14:25, Jeffrey Morgan a =E9crit :
>=20
> > hi,=20
> >   I was just wondering about the current development status of
> > Java-Gnome - how many people are working on it at the moment,=20
> > are there
> > any areas which particularly need help, etc.
>=20
> I am the only one working on the bindings.  I could definitely
> use help on several areas of the project.
>=20
> >=20
> > From my dabbling with with code from CVS, most of the Gtk2 stuff seems
> > done, apart from the documentation. If this is simply a case of adding
> > things like (comment (GtkWidget is the base class of all widgets.)) to
> > the defs files; and the comments mostly being copied from Gtk
> > documentation; then I would like to volounteer to help.
>=20
> There are two areas that still need work on the bindings
> themselves.  They are the GtkTreeView/Model related classes
> and the new Gtk Stock objects.  I am currently working on
> the tree/model classes.  Also, as you have stated, the def
> files should be updated with useful comments, documentation
> needs to be updated and the examples also need updating.  I
> would welcome any help you might be able to provide.
>=20
> -Jeff