Posted by Jim Michaels on 02/18/06 04:36

"Erwin Moller"
<since_humans_read_this_I_am_spammed_too_much@spamyourself.com> wrote in
message news:43f438ee$0$11072$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> Hi Group,
>
> I am starting on some project and need to program all kinds of windows
> with
> buttons/textfields/etc.
> My natural reaction was to build this in Java, but since I like PHP so
> much
> I thought about giving it a try in PHP.
> My problem: I only used PHP inside a webserver untill now, and I have
> experience with some simple scripts I build for cronjobs in PHP
> (commandline/cli invocation).
>
> My requirements are:
> - a memoryhungry continuous proces that could last for days.
> - Need windows and all kind of gadgets like buttons/textareas/etc.
> - Must run under W$ and *nix. (Additional software installs are no
> problem)
>
>
> I was thinking to invoke PHP from commandline without a timeout,
> overruling
> php.ini.
> For windowsprogramming I found activestate/tcl, but I have 0 experience
> with
> it.
>
> Is this the right way to go?
> Is TCL easy to learn and use?

Tcl has its own learning curve. expressions are a bit difficult. all those
square brackets and odd substituion situations with variables.
You can make a complete working dialog in Tcl/Tk with 1 page of code. It's
available for UNIX and was made mainly for X. to make a button,

button .b -text "press me" -command {do something }
pack .b

and after pack, a button pops into the window. "pack .b -side left" does
what you think it does.

it can be difficult to get your gui right. there are different layout
managers, like pack, grid, and a few others I think. Pack doesn't always
act like you want it to, so you have to test & debug a lot.
for OOP, go incr-Tcl. it's considered a built-in lib now. then your stuff
can be entirely event-driven.

Tcl/Tk excels at making GUIs for command-line tools. it has sockets, and can
interface with databases.
PHP is better probably at handling dates, unless something changed I don't
know about.
If you are going to do anything serious with it, get a book. At the time, I
think it was a black book by welch, but that was years ago.

since you know PHP, maybe GTK is a best fit. Or maybe it's Tcl/Tk. I
dunno. I've used both, depending on what I'm doing. I've even used Perl/Tk
and made an FTP GUI, but that was a bit too hard (no docs).


>
> What other options do I have?
> Does anybody have any ideas/suggestions?
> Any pittfalls on the road ahead?
> Should I just stick to Java?
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> Regards,
> Erwin Moller

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