[Code Challenge] WxPython versus Tkinter.

[Mike Driscoll]

In my experience, segfaults with wxPython aren't daily, but they are
pretty much weekly. There are weeks that can go by without them, but
then I'll have several in a week to bump up the average.

I've only run my code on Windows and Linux, but I haven't had this
issue. The only time I've had segfaults was when I was first learning
how to get threading and wx to work properly and when I was creating
binaries with py2exe.

On a completely different note, as a heavy wxPython user for almost 5
years, I have never seen the OP on our mailing list, dev group or IRC
channel. While I like wx more than Tk, I think this thread is a
terrible way to try to show that wx is better. I like the concept of
creating a challenge to see which toolkit can do what, but this is not
the way to go about it.

Bryan, on the other hand, has been a Tkinter luminary who has helped
me in the past when I was learning Tkinter and I won't be too
surprised if he helps me again. I'm sorry he's had so much trouble
with wx though.

 

[rantingrick]

I've only run my code on Windows and Linux, but I haven't had this
issue. The only time I've had segfaults was when I was first learning
how to get threading and wx to work properly and when I was creating
binaries with py2exe.

Thanks. I knew these guys were full of it.

On a completely different note, as a heavy wxPython user for almost 5
years, I have never seen the OP on our mailing list, dev group or IRC
channel.

Thats because i have not been there. And yet i can produce code (maybe
not perfectly). However those that have been around wx list for longer
cannot. Interesting.

I like the concept of
creating a challenge to see which toolkit can do what, but this is not
the way to go about it.

Well by all means offer some input. You have offered opinions but no
ideas. I would love to hear any ideas you may have. And yes, Tkinter
has a very likable API. I have mentioned this fact many times and in
many threads. However when weighed on all factors wx will win. Because
even though we may need to mold the wx API a bit, at least with wx we
have a solid feature rich platform to work from.

Bryan, on the other hand, has been a Tkinter luminary who has helped
me in the past when I was learning Tkinter and I won't be too
surprised if he helps me again. I'm sorry he's had so much trouble
with wx though.

 

[Grant Edwards]

Bryan you are clearly an idiot. I am demanding that from now on, you
must have at least a 120 or higher IQ before participating in any of
my threads.

Rantingrick thinks certain threads belong to him.

'nuf said.

 

[Grant Edwards]

Python (and supposedly wxPython) are cross-platform. Code that runs on
one should run on the other unmodified.

No, that's not what "cross-platform" really means. Cross-platform
means that it's possible (and reasonably stright-forward) to write
code that will run unmodified on multiple platforms. It doesn't mean
that it's impossible to write code that will only work on one
platform.

 

[rantingrick]

Rantingrick thinks certain threads belong to him.

No these are free and open forums and all are welcome to come and
listen to what i say .

Notice i only specified an IQ level and i made no demands as to how
much Python knowledge was required. You can be a noob or a pro and
participate. However i am not about to entertain trolls and ignorants
because these people do not have the basic tools to contribute
anything helpful. Whereas someone who has meager Python skills (but a
reasonable IQ) CAN participate in lively and coherent debate all the
while contributing in a positive way. These are the people i want to
talk with. Some have dropped in already but failed to offer good
debate. NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!

Many folks here don't understand how to contribute in a positive way.
NEWSFLASH! You can both disagree with me AND contribute to the debate
in a positive way at the same time. Oh yes! One example would be for
the "Linux whiners" to post a fix to my example code. If they are not
going to answer the challenge with Tkinter code, then they should at
least fix ONE measly little bug to prove their worth to this
community. So far you have all failed BOTH challenges.

 

[Mike Driscoll]

Thanks. I knew these guys were full of it.

Not necessarily. He may been using some of the generic widgets, like
the agw stuff. The agw set is awesome, but they haven't been tested
extensively on anything other than Windows because their author is a
Windows programmer.

Well by all means offer some input. You have offered opinions but no
ideas. I would love to hear any ideas you may have. And yes, Tkinter
has a very likable API. I have mentioned this fact many times and in
many threads. However when weighed on all factors wx will win. Because
even though we may need to mold the wx API a bit, at least with wx we
have a solid feature rich platform to work from.

I haven't gotten my ideas fleshed out yet. When I do, I will describe
them.

 

[Octavian Rasnita]

majority of >users that need to use a screen reader?
I said nothing the like. TkInter does have problemns with Jaws, but I'm
not going to sit here and say the same thing over and over as you are
doing. Get off the soapbox already.

If something's wrong, the people need to know that what they like is wrong and the wrong things need to be changed with something better. And I just shown why Tkinter is a very bad tool.
I'm not in love with wxWIDGETS because they also provide a few widgets which have problems. I like MFC, but unfortunately it is not portable.

Octavian

 

[Ethan Furman]

[...]

Octavian,

Please do not repost rr's crap in its entirety, or you'll find yourself
added to many killfiles -- just like he is.

~Ethan~

 

[rantingrick]

You mean, you are putting yourself in your own killfile

Actually i never use the killfile and never will. The main reason is
because i believe in the old adage: "Keep friends close and enemies
closer". But i don't have any enemies here (as far as i am concerned).

However the real reason i will not use the killfile is because i
believe that people can change. Even very wise people are not immune
to bad decisions. Case in point: My initial disgust with Ruby was
completely unfounded. Ruby has a lot to offer the programming world
and while it is not my preferred language, we as Python programmers
can learn much from Ruby and likewise Ruby can learn from us. I was
being a closed minded idiot at the time. I have since evolved.

In any event the killfile only serves as instant gratification for the
selfish "one dimensional" folks among us. If you are so fearful of
someone's words that you must hide your eyes from them then you lack
basic self control. And in the end, the only thing you kill is your
own humanity.

 

[rantingrick]

I haven't gotten my ideas fleshed out yet. When I do, I will describe
them.

I look forward to any proposals and i would like to be a part of this
challenge both for wxPython and Tkinter since i have used both.

 

[Mark Roseman]

But unfortunately it is not accessible for screen readers and it
discriminates many potential users.

Octavian, thank you for very clearly making and repeating your point
about screen readers. It is very obvious that at this point in time Tk
(and hence Tkinter) is not a suitable candidate if screen readers are an
important concern.

In an ideal world, every GUI would be fully accessible. The reality is
that sometimes, competing requirements will lead to accessibility being
lower in the priority list than other things. So with different
requirements and priorities, the "best" solution will be different.

I don't object and in fact commend you for advocating for accessibility.
I do feel you are not acknowledging and fully respecting that others may
be in situations where accessibility may not be the primary concern.

Thanks again
Mark

 

[rantingrick]

Octavian, thank you for very clearly making and repeating your point
about screen readers.  It is very obvious that at this point in time Tk
(and hence Tkinter) is not a suitable candidate if screen readers are an
important concern.

In an ideal world, every GUI would be fully accessible.  The reality is
that sometimes, competing requirements will lead to accessibility being
lower in the priority list than other things.  So with different
requirements and priorities, the "best" solution will be different.

I don't object and in fact commend you for advocating for accessibility.  
I do feel you are not acknowledging and fully respecting that others may
be in situations where accessibility may not be the primary concern.  

Why don't you just tell him to shut the hell up Mark? Anyone can see
that SHUT THE HELL UP is what you are implying here. Obviously you
guys are worried terribly about accessibility hurting your "one
dimensional" position of supporting the legacy TclTk. Otherwise you
would not make veiled threats like this. Your post is an obvious
veiled threat to anyone of average intelligence!

Octavian has already been threatened with the kill file by Ethan for
accidentally quoting me too much. You guys are very disappointing to
this community. Everyone here needs a voice. We must never engage in
behaviors that would limit speech from our community members who have
the intelligence to offer reasonable arguments. Octavian is not a
troll or spammer and should not be treated as such! Stop this
threating of our community members NOW!

 

[Bryan]

I doubt you could do a program that offers the same features usingTkinter..
That program will not be accessible for screen readers and this is a big
problem, a vital problem for those that use a screen reader, because the
program won't be accessible at all.

Octavian

I wish I could respond to that, but I have no experience with screen
readers. Are there any free ones, or ones with free trials, that I
could try out? I'm not yet convinced it's any better or worse than
wxPython since you're only a single datapoint, but of course it's
possible. If you know of any free tools I can use to experiment, I'd
appreciate you posting them in this newsgroup.

Accessibility, like internationalization, is something few programmers
spend much time thinking about. I can only imagine the frustration one
must experience if all interactions had to be through a screen reader.

 

[rantingrick]

Accessibility, like internationalization, is something few programmers
spend much time thinking about.

Thats another uninformed statement by you we can add to the mountains
of useless cruft you have offered so far. Unicode IS
internationalization and Guido thought it was SO important that
Python3000 auto converts all strings to Unicode strings. Obviously he
is moving us toward full Unicode only in the future (AS SHOULD ALL
IMPLEMENTATIONS!). We need one and only one obvious way to do it. And
Unicode is that way.

 

[Bryan]

Yes, and this could not be your problem, it must bewxPython. Right?
*rolls-eyes*

Correct. A scripting language should *never* segfault. If it does, it
is a bug in the language or library.

It is a provable fact that wxPython segfaults. You yourself proved
that. That is, in and of itself, *not* a reason to pick some other
toolkit. It's merely a datapoint. It's not a datapoint you can just
sweep under the rug, however, like you seem to want to do.

And we need to fix that instead just disqualifying a feature rich
toolkit.

I think if you re-read my post you'll see I don't disqualify it as a
rich toolkit. wxPython is a fine toolkit. Better than tkinter in some
ways, worse in others. segfaults is one aspect in which it is
measurably worse.

 

[Littlefield, Tyler]

Hello,

I have been on another list with Octavian, and he takes his
accessibility a bit to seriously. If things went his way, he wants laws
where -everything- has to be accessible, and it is illegal not to do so.
As a sidenote, I would like to preface everything I'm going to say by
mentioning the fact that I have been using a screen reader for many
years, so I understand some of where he is coming from.

I think my goal, (and I differ from Octavian here), is to try to find
fixes for things, rather than saying "this sucks, it does not work with
a reader, and thus it shouldn't be used). Having done a lot of
development work in the past, I can't say "hey you, I want you to make
this app accessible, and because you used TKInter it's not, so use
something else, but nothing that isn't accessible." Rather, I believe
those pushing accessibility should concentrate on the root cause; that
of fixing TKInter, and not forcing everyone else to use a different library.

I believe that the approach is the main key here, and I have had this
argument many times. If I wrote an app, and someone said something along
the lines of "you need to change a core library because it doesn't work
with this program," my first response would be who the hell are you to
say what I need to use? We need to take the approach of "This is what is
wrong, this is why, this is possibly how it could be fixed. Would you be
willing to do so?"

So, with all of this said, TKInter -is- unaccesssible for us. My
arguments have not been for or against one or the other in this thread,
but more to get RR to make a better point. Because eventually, WX would
benafit those using a screen reader a lot more than say, TKInter will.
That doesn't mean that I'm saying that we need to make it a part of the
stdlib as of yesterday, because segfaults from someone with 10+ years of
experience (multiple people, actually) says a lot, whether or not RR
wants to acknowledge said facts. I can not with good conchence say that
the switch should be done just for accessibility purposes. Obviously it
would be awesome, but I think Octavian is just focusing on himself, and
not the actual big picture here.

 

[rantingrick]

It is a provable fact that wxPython segfaults. You yourself proved
that. That is, in and of itself, *not* a reason to pick some other
toolkit. It's merely a datapoint. It's not a datapoint you can just
sweep under the rug, however, like you seem to want to do.

Ok, now you are talking with facts and we can have a real debate!

Yes wxPython can be made to segfault by the user in some
circumstances. And YES this is very undesirable and it is the direct
product of a poorly written API. However! I do not blame the wxPython
creators or even Robin Dunn himself for this problem. Robin has stated
many times that he wants to keep wxPython as close to wxWidgets as
possible and he also said there is room for a "top level" API. This is
why wxPython proper has no business in the stdlib! We need an
abstraction API written in Python. So my point is, we need to create
this API independent of wxPython. You can think of it as "wx-inter" if
you like.

I think if you re-read my post you'll see I don't disqualify it as a
rich toolkit. wxPython is a fine toolkit. Better than tkinter in some
ways, worse in others. segfaults is one aspect in which it is
measurably worse.

Again: good argument! And i stand on my last reply. If you would be
interested i would like to work on this abstraction API with you. Are
you interested? How free are you? We need to work together to solve
this problem.

 

[Ethan Furman]

I don't object and in fact commend you for advocating for accessibility.
I do feel you are not acknowledging and fully respecting that others may
be in situations where accessibility may not be the primary concern.

Well said.

~Ethan~

 

[Littlefield, Tyler]

Bryan: Here's a pretty good list for you.
Windows:
Jaws for Windows (http://freedomscientific.com). Not free, but you get a
40 minute demo before you need to reboot.
Nonvisual Desktop Access: http://www.nvda-project.org/
Free, open source, written in python (with some core stuff in c/c++).
Linux:
Orca live.gnome.org/Orca
Fre, open source. If you don't want to install that bloated mess on a
box (I sympathise), and you can grab a vmware vinux or a live cd or
whatever from:
http://vinux.org.uk
OSX:
OSX comes built in with Voiceover, just hold down the command key and
hit F5. Use the same keystroke to turn it off.
Enjoy!

 

[Noah Hall]

Why don't you just tell him to shut the hell up Mark?

accidentally quoting me too much. You guys are very disappointing to
this community. Everyone here needs a voice. We must never engage in
behaviors that would limit speech from our community members who have
the intelligence to offer reasonable arguments. Octavian is not a
troll or spammer and should not be treated as such! Stop this
threating of our community members NOW!

Oh, the irony. It's not so much what you're saying, but the way you're
saying it. You're not allowed to treat people like that - no matter
how much you *think* you're right. You've done nothing but accuse
anyone disagreeing with you of being a troll and then proceed to curse
them. I don't know why you're surprised people won't discuss matters
with you. It sounds like you have a lot of growing up you need to do.