Re: winforms for GUI?

On Sun, 8 Aug 2004 10:09:53 -0600, Samuel M. Smith wrote:

>>
>> I didn't really realize until Guido's message that it required a 20 
>> megabyte
>> download to use .Net (he said 200 megs <grin> but he was corrected on
>> comp.lang.python).  That is a real drag and confirms some of your 
>> arguments.
>> I can see why it is such a big load though.  The library IS gigantic, 
>> which
>> can be a good thing.  Maybe it can be trimmed.
> That would go counter to 20 years of computer science evolution. 
> Libraries always get bigger with time.
> 
> Your whole motivation for
> using CLR is to get the full featured libraries!
> 
> I suppose you could find a minimal subset that was a mandatory install
> and have options for other stuff.

I like the way you answer your own questions for me. :-)

>> I was planning on making the Prothon download/install/run experience as
>> transparently like the Python experience as possible.  Now I see I've
>> already got the long download time as one problem.  I don't know yet 
>> if I
>> will run into other gotcha's.  If I don't, then I don't think this is
>> necessarily a killer problem.
> 
> It is for embedded applications. I can run Linux and python in a small 
> RAM
> footprint like < 8 Meg but I doubt if you could ever get .Net in such a 
> footprint unless
> you use Windows CE which Microsoft will optimize .Net for

Once again you are answering your question for me.

>> In other words, as the prothon author and person responsible for the 
>> Prothon
>> experience, I will be assuming responsibility for the hiding of the 
>> imperial
>> forces and the dark star hiding within Prothon.  If or when I find out 
>> this
>> cannot be done, then I will admit I was wrong and give up.
> 
> Your willingess to chance course even when it means redoing a bunch of 
> stuff is one of your more admirable qualities.
> IMHO this is another opportunity for you to show your admirable quality.

One of the advantages of being light on my feet and being able to switch,
is that I can choose when to do it.  I think doing the .Net VM now and the
native Prothon VM later is the right order of things. I think I will learn
a lot from .Net.  Also, the .Net will force certain small changes to my
language.  It is good that I do it first to get those changes right.

>> Do you buy this argument?  If not, is it because you don't think it is
>> possible?  If not possible, then why?  What do you think I will run 
>> into
>> that will stop me?  I don't want to start down this road if it is a 
>> doomed
>> venture.
> 
> Machine to Machine computing, embedded network devices etc etc are the 
> next big transformational advance in computing.
> A tightly coded high level language with support for weightless 
> threads, stackless etc. obviates the need for an RTOS. It makes
> cross platform embedded apps possible.This is a huge advantage.
> You can
> run an asynchrounous multi-process like application(s) in just one 
> process, that is the one running python/prothon. This does for embedded 
> system programming what
> VB did for DeskTop applications, that is, make non experts capable of 
> writing and deploying commercial quality apps.

We don't know yet that what you ask for cannot be done with .Net.  You are
making a lot of assumptions.  Jim set out to show .Net could not work for
Python and was surprised when he found out what it could do when he did
IronPython.

> I think a Python library interface to Prothon is a better bet for 
> getting libraries for Prothon quickly. You really only need the network 
> library ported to Prothon
> the other Python libraries could be run like extensions.
> 
> Don't get sucked into the allure of .Net.

If there is an allure then there must be a reason for the allure.