Re: Object epiphany: A new way of building widget applications

[Ben Tupper <pemaquidriver(at)tidewater.net>]

Hello,

Martin Schultz wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>    With almost a week delay, I finally get around to release the first
> version of a new class of IDL objects: the MGS_GUIObject hierarchy.
> Don't shy away immediately! It's far easier than it sounds, and once
> you will have discovered how easy it now becomes to develop widget
> applications, you will get hooked! Ben Tupper has managed to get
> something running within a day.
>

Now, I could take that as a compliment on my programming prowess or I
could take that as testimony of the ease of basing widgets on
MGS_GUIObject.  I know my programming skills well enough to know that it
is the latter.

I have migrated to using objects for all items that are GUIs or serve some
form of a databasing function.  Perhaps I have been an easy sell for
Martin because I got hooked on his earlier MGS_CONTAINER object (I rarely
use IDL_CONTAINER... and when I do, I always regret it and change it to
Martin's subclass.)   I have switched to object coding because the people
I work for often change their minds about what is needed.  The object
style coding is perfect for this situation.

Key items for me (non-programmer/science-lackey/guinea pig) are:

1. It is way too easy.  When I think of the hours I have spent building
GUIs from scratch that could have been done in hours... ugh.    How many
times have I written the event handlers for GUIs to handle cleaning up the
widget, sending events to the proper procedures/methods.  It seemed like
an nightmarish repetition that varied only slightly in the details.  Here
it is done once with a uniform nomenclature and a standard operating
procedure.

2. I can treat it as a black box.  I don't have to know how it does what
it does.   I don't need to fiddle-faddle with all of the MODAL, BLOCKING,
CLEANUP, etc.  knobs that make xMANAGER control the GUIs they way I expect
(hope).   All of those are handle by the base gui object behind the
scenes.

3. I can open the black box and override any of the hidden workings (see
#2 above) with out changing the base object code.  I can have a special
case without building exception handling into the base (object) code. (#2
and #3 give me the best of both worlds!)

Object-based GUIs are worthy of a serious look by anyone who needs GUIs
but hates to (re)write them.  And while your at it, there is no point in
reinventing the wheel, try MGS_GUIobject.

Ben
--
Ben Tupper
248 Lower Round Pond Road
POB 106
Bristol, ME 04539

Tel: (207) 563-1048
Email: PemaquidRiver@tidewater.net