Re: AWT

[Tom Tromey <tromey@cygnus.com>]

>>>>> "Nathan" == Nathan Meyers <nmeyers@teleport.com> writes:

Nathan> I really wonder about this reason. It seems to me that raw
Nathan> native windows instead of platform-specific GUIs could have
Nathan> enabled an awfully good cross-platform toolkit without too
Nathan> many constraints (was the market really screaming for the
Nathan> glass pane?). Instead, Sun opted for a no-constraints design
Nathan> that rules out native-window implementation on any platform.

Interestingly, Tk made exactly the opposite decision: for non-Unix
ports they had a rendering layer which did everything "by hand" on one
big window.  They later changed to using native widgets in order to
more easily get native look-and-feel.  This looks like more of a pain
to implement (there seem to be many subtle differences between X and
Windows, not to mention the gross differences), but it has a nicer
feel and (for Tk anyway) better performance.  Of course the situations
are probably not exactly analogous.

Tom