[ubuntu-za] GUI programming in Ubuntu

[Jonathan Hitchcock]

Hi,

On 12 May 2008, at 1:14 PM, Alf Stockton wrote:
> By whose definition is it "an awful language" and surely if the tool
> works why not use it.

There are a number of well known problems with the language - lack of  
namespacing, strange type-checking (the need to invent the "==="  
operator should have been a warning sign), inconsistent function  
naming, and so on, are all problems that a programmer should not have  
to deal with.

Combining these problems with the fact that the language was designed  
(albeit badly) to preprocess HTML (PHP originally stood for "PHP:  
Hypertext Preprocessor"), and not to create graphical client  
applications, means that a programmer is going to have a harder time  
using it for that purpose than he would if he made a wiser choice of  
language.

Saying "if the tool works, why not use it" is short-sighted.  The  
obvious answer is "because there are other tools which will work much  
better, and with much less effort".

I'd like to add my recommendation for Python and GTK to those that  
have gone before.