Re: Newbie Needs Ada Advice

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

ezkcdude writes:
> As for your reply, thanks, so much! You guys are awesome. I'm not
> sure I'm any closer to an answer, but at least, I know a lot of the
> questions involved. At this point, that's enough for me.

At one point you asked whether writing the "engine" in Ada and the GUI
in another language was a option; the answer is "yes, there are
several ways".  But OTOH you seem reluctant to learn more than one
language, and you also seem to lack experience with GUI programming,
so you're unbiased as to which toolkit you should use.

Personally I used Java Swing about 7 years ago, and wrote a quick toy
GUI with GtkAda a couple of years ago in one afternoon.  I used glade,
generated Ada code from the XML file and, wanting to learn more by
myself, rewrote the Ada by hand in what I thought was a cleaner way.
I think both Java/Swing and Ada/GtkAda are equally difficult, or
equally easy, to use.  If you like you can browse the sources for this
toy program here:

http://www.ada-france.org:8081/branch/changes/org.ludovic-brenta.meyse

(the licese is PURE GPL, sorry Markus :)).  You'll notice that the
"engine" and GUI are in separate packages, and the program runs
equally well on the command line as with a GUI (i.e. with a command
line parameter, it doesn't start the GUI).

So, if I were you I'd go for GtkAda and avoid learning another
language just for the GUI.  But rest assured that no matter what
language and toolkit you use, GUI programs are many times larger and
more complex than command-line programs, and be prepared to spend most
of your time doing "boring" stuff like building dialog boxes.  Also be
prepared for a steep learning curve with any toolkit you choose.
Sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it?

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.