Keep it simple; I don't think a non-python and/or non-free solution would mesh well enough for new users of Zope, supposing that all of the sudden, it became a popular tool for GUI-based enterprise applications. Uh, if you are going to create a framework of python classes to do UI stuff, why base it on a foundation of Kylix? Its not true x-platform at all and even if you used it to create a "free" (whatever that means) toolkit you just add library bloat by having to support toolkits on top of toolkits on top of toolkits, none of which are free. I love Python enough to not want to move away from coding in it, even for a GUI app. I want Borland-style RAD to do this, but I'm willing to wait until I get it free, and in Python (i.e. Boa-Constructor). In the meantime, I can code in wxPython, and have nice looking apps with themed GTK widgets displayed under X, and expect that all this will run on Win32 as well - all at no cost to me as a developer (money doesn't grow on trees, for me at least) and no cost to users as well. I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by an application as a toolkit? That doesn't make sense to me: function libraries are toolkits; class libraries are toolkits. Running all this within an app sounds like the functional equivalent of running GW basic code under DOS on a 8086: you are forced to run apps inside an interpreter, there is no runtime, and this is not transparent to the user. Why force this kind of complication? To produce an IDE that won't create standalone applications, let alone ones that use simple, freely available toolkits? FYI, Inprise EULAs forbid creating competing products; for example, during the days when Borland marketed Paradox, they explitly forbit Delphi developers from using the BDE to create general-purpose database app workalikes to Borland products. Anyway, this is making the problem more complex than it needs to be; the only value Kylix has is as a RAD tool; it has no value for creating toolkits for development without the closed RAD tool, so what's the point? Sean -----Original Message----- From: Christian Tismer [mailto:tismer@tismer.com] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 3:14 PM To: sean.upton@uniontrib.com Cc: zope@zope.org Subject: Re: [Zope] Prerequisites for a desktop IDE, or any desktop app w/ Zope sean.upton@uniontrib.com wrote:

As a former VCL and OWL programmer, I have a bit of an affinity towards

that

way of doing things; the catch is of course, given I mainly do server-side development now (and frankly, it makes no sense to do non-client development in non-open tools, for the most part), I don't have the interest, or the money to keep paying Borland for upgrades every time the release a new version of Kylix/Delphi/Whatever; I stopped playing that game at about BCPP 3 after going from TP1.5->Delphi2->BCPP 3. I could only afford the decent versions of those tools when I was a student and had access to academic pricing at the campus bookstore, and now that I don't I do work in free tools, and get more satisfaction out of it. Kylix still has too high of a barrier to entry for most developers to even be considered for any open-source development.

I see your point, partially. But is the problem with server-side development? I wouldn't consider to do anything in Kylix on the server side. We are talking abount a GUI, which is the only reason to move away from Python at all. What I'm thinking of is: We can build a generic application using Kylix or Delphi, which has all the components in it, which are needed so far. They could be made higly configurable, and finally, that Kylix app would be like a toolkit, like wxPython is. It would be compiled once, and the executable would be freely available. Applications for this tool would then we written in Python, completely. It would configure that generic app. With this cheap trick, Kylix would be turned into a generic GUI builder tool, at no cost.

wxPython has definitely rekindled my interest in doing some desktop development, with the idea that Zope would provide a good middleware suite / backend for those kind of apps. I can't wait to see what the Boa-Constructor people have been doing...

If I could get the ability to have a tool like Delphi, et al and be able to code in Python, and use Zope as an object brokering system for a backend - and have it all free - I would be very willing to give up sleeping and eating just to code more ;)

My proposal is to use Delphi, and build a tool with it which is like Delphi. The task would be just to write such an app, not too hard probably. Delphi is written in itself, as you know. I have already written some generic application with about 20 generic widgets, which are all configurable at runtime. And Delphi is able to produce .dfm files at runtime and to read them back in. It is so self-contained that it is somehow waiting to be stolen as a generic app framework. I'm wondering why nobody does it. Maybe I should do this now. ciao - chris -- Christian Tismer :^) <mailto:tismer@tismer.com> Mission Impossible 5oftware : Have a break! Take a ride on Python's Kaunstr. 26 : *Starship* http://starship.python.net/ 14163 Berlin : PGP key -> http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ PGP Fingerprint E182 71C7 1A9D 66E9 9D15 D3CC D4D7 93E2 1FAE F6DF where do you want to jump today? http://www.stackless.com/