[news.eclipse.platform.swt] Re: Using SWT/JFace to build Fat-Client App

[Hans Deragon <hans@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark wrote:
> Thanks for David and Hans's answers.
>
>
> > Swing has a much better, richer API and thus is easier to develop with. 
> > However, performance wise, it sucks.
>
> I heard that Swing 1.4 improves a lot in performance.  I also heard from
> Java newsgroup saying that in most cases, Swing is fast enough.  I have
> been hearing/reading conflicting comments.

Pff.  I bet JList is still slugish.  You cannot beat the speed of native 
widgets.  Sun should implement native widgets that respects Swing's API for 
all major platforms.  That would be the best.

Anybody has a JList working under 1.4?  Is it as fast as list in normal 
Windows apps?  If you have time to spare, why not implement two small test 
programs, one with Swing's JList, the other with SWT's List.  Fill the lists 
and scroll with the mouse.  Tell us then if any of them is sluggish.  Try this 
on a computer which CPU speed is <1GHz.

> > So I would use Swing for 
> > an application where minimizing development cost is imperative and the user 
> > base is small (like an internal project).  But SWT/JFace is the way to go if 
> > you expect your application to be widely used, mostly by external customers.
>
>
> It sounds like your comments imply that for the same application,
> development using Swing will be QUICKER than to use SWT/JFace.  I think
> this will definitely be a concern because this means more development cost
> for SWT/JFace solution.

Yep, but a user cannot tell if an application written with SWT is a Java 
application.  That is a big plus.  Marketing wise, you would probably want to 
go with SWT, specially if the user base is large.  Eclipse plugins are written 
using SWT/JFace, and see by yourself how responsive the IDE is.  I hate 
working with SWT, but love the final result and this is why I go with it.

> Actually, before your reply, I would think that development Swing would be
> a lot slower than SWT/JFace....

Swing's API is much more flexible, richer and follows the MVC paradigm.  SWT 
is more basic and thus you must implement more supporting classes.  JFace 
helps, but is not Swing.  Also, you are not allowed to subclass SWT widgets, 
while you can subclass Swing widgets.  You have to do more under SWT than you 
have to do under Swing.

Because SWT lacks a few features, a started a little open source project named 
SWT MVC Wrapper (http://swtmvcwrapper.sourceforge.net).  Its still alpha though.

Its sad that there is not a real, powerfull and fast GUI API for Java.  This 
is why Java never took off as a platform for GUI building...


Sincerely,
Hans Deragon
--
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