On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, markus liedl wrote:

> > having a native window with a canvas which Ruby draws on using the BitBlt 
> > operation.  From there we can think about a GUI toolkit like Squeak's, and
> > other things like that.
> 
> matju, and experiences with Java Swing will tell you that this solution is
> not fast, and will never be. I was surprised, but Swings slowness does not
> depend on the hardware it runs one, it's just slow. (I have impressions from
> using Swing on a k6-2 350,  P3 650, athlon 1.4)
> 
> matju's ideas say: get compatibility by the X11 protocol ( which may not be
> what windows-guys like).
> 
Well, there are X clients for windows (even free ones).

> It's waste of time to copy Java Swing for Ruby.
> 
> Surely, it's a nice occassion for you to learn how a certain chip on your
> graphic card is doing BitBlts, but for serious work, let it do this chip.
> 
The very little experience I have with Squeak and VisualWorks Smalltalk
lead me to beleive that writing your own GUI is *NOT* what we should do. I
find them a bit slow. YMMV.

I think a better thing would be to leverage existing frameworks such as
FXRuby. If you want to go low-level then why not libsdl as someone
mentioned. (Of course you can always to a project just to learn
things; its often the best / a very good reson, so please go ahead! ;))

As a RubyVM-related note I should say that my goal is really to get true
flexibility in where and how fast and how small things need to be to
execute Ruby; not in writing a full OS/GUI. So you should *not* think that
my RubyVM aims is to be Squeak for Ruby.

Regards,

Robert