jeff
At 11:46 AM 7/16/99 -0700, Tom Ryan wrote:
>Eric,
>
>> Our approach is philosophically different from uniform platform
>> abstraction libraries like wxWindows or AWT.
>
>Have you taken a close look at wxWindows? It is very different
>from AWT and I think it actually would fit the AbiWord model very nicely.
>wxWindows applications have the native look and feel of the target
>OS because they the native GUI for rendering.
>
>> Most XP toolkits attempt
>> to create an abstraction layer which is wide enough to accomodate
>> virtually all platform-specific functionality. In our approach, we've
>> simply admitted that platform-specific code needs to exist, and we've
>> adopted a system which helps us deal with it, rather than adopting a
>> system which helps us try to avoid it. We still use abstraction to
>> hide platform-specific code, but not pervasively so.
>
>The point of using reusable tools is not to "avoid" writing platform
>specific code, rather it enables many developers that are trying to
>solve the same XP issues to work together for the common good.
>
>What concerns me is that there are so many duplicate porting
>efforts going on right now. Mozilla has their XP library, AbiWord
>has theirs, etc, etc, etc., etc.
>
>I understand that if there are no existing tools that solve a particular
>problem, you may need it improvise. I don't think that that is the
>case today. If we can all get together as an industry, we can
>eliminate much of that duplication of efforts and truly make the
>"Cross Platform Platform" a viable option for developers. Failing
>that, there will be a few fragmented XP efforts and a lot of wasted
>effort writing duplicate code and we will all be forced to use
>Windows 2010.
>
>I agree with a lot of what you said on your web page about the
>importance of supporting multiple platforms, but if every application
>has to do application specific ports to each OS, it is going to
>dramatically reduce the viability of developing for multiple platforms.
>
>To put it another way, wouldn't it be better if the time spent porting
>AbiWord to new platforms was instead spent on adding new
>features, improving the installer, etc., etc, etc.?
>
>I think projects like AbiWord are leading the way for cross platform
>development, but we need to look at the big picture by encouraging
>the use of tools that will benefit all XP developers. I believe that can
>be done with available tools, without compromising the quality of
>the resulting applications.
>
>...just my 2.5 cents.
>
>Regards,
>
>Tom Ryan
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