> > ...Component-based Software Engineering. That's where I
> > see VB fitting in like a glove, and that's were I see
> > Ada lacking. The VB GUI is not just buttons and text
> > boxes (THAT was the first day). It is also dynamic
> > list boxes (a form of linked list without the pointers),
> > drive list boxes and directory list boxes and file list
> > boxes which combine to allow you to navigate a file
> > system without programming any system calls, the chart
> > control which allows you to configure and draw 16 kinds
> > of charts (bar, XY, line, area, pie, both 2D and 3D, etc)
> > without worrying about manipulating pixels, the common
> > dialog control which allows for 6 common program needs
> > (open a file, save/create a file, select a printer,
> > select a font, select a color, and invoke online help)
> > with almost no effort, and so on. The standard packages
> > in Ada95 are very good, but no where near this level of
> > abstraction. Assuming the components are reliable
> > (which they seem to be), you can put together massive
> > applications with very few lines of code.
The Java libraries, and TCL/Tk ALSO have stuff like this already
available. (And like Rush said, without Windows dependence)
But I am not impressed with the Java ones. A simple GUI was rather
difficult to create with JBuilder. JBuilder also was unable to make it
look good--for that I had to edit the generated Java. The result was a
ridiculous amount of Java code--constructors, adjustments,
assignments--totaling at least a hundred SLOC for something I could have
done in fifty lines of TCL/Tk/wish. (And that's counting modifiers like
-width 50 as SLOC!)
Someone a while back posted a problem from a placement test that showed
the same thing accomplished three ways. C took one line, C++ took a few
lines, Java took many. (Ada wasn't there, but would have been about the
same size as C).
--
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau
|