Re: GNAT for MS Visual Studio

[Markus E L <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

"Steve" wrote:

> "Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen" 
> <ole-hjalmar.kristensen@substitute_employer_here.com> wrote in message 
> news:wvbrabr9hq0t.fsf@astra06.norway.sun.com...
>> MS Visual Studio GUI development reflects state of the art when I quit
>> actively working in the field more than 10 years ago. I am not impressed.
>
> Unfortunately comparing Ada GUI development to MS Visual Studio makes me 
> depressed (because I'd rather be doing GUI development in Ada!).

Steve, 

I'd like to press my point: Have you ever seriously considered not
using a GUI builder but building a GUI "by hand", just instantiating
and inserting the widget where needed? It might seem tedious at the
beginning, but, in my experience doesn't make much more work in the
long run. Furthermore it provides opportunities too, because if highly
dynamic GUIs are required (e.g. Widgets being replaced or removed
dependent on the state of the program or editing process), GUI
builders can't provide that (whereas "manual instantiation" has no
problems), and there is also the opportunity to tweak layout,
alignment, colours and inserting modified custom widgets.

GUI builders are fine if you're programming for paper-shufflers:
Everything is a "form" than, as it was in the time of paper forms.

But interactive software needs to be smarter -- and that is what GUI
builders can't provide in my (admittedly limited and perhaps dated
experience). So if I end up anyway not being able to use the GUI
builder, I could as well learn how to use the tool kit in the language
proper.

That said, I admit, I often use Glade to mock up a GUI for discussion
and demo screenshots. But more often than not, I'm also putting that
into code manually after I found what I (or the client) has been
looking for. Might be peculiarity of mine, though.

Regards -- Markus