Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Benjamin Franksen <[email protected]> · Fri, 1 Sep 2006 01:29:20 +0200

On Friday 01 September 2006 01:04, Ernest L. Williams Jr. wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-09-01 at 00:30 +0200, Benjamin Franksen wrote:
> > OTOH, I have to warn that switching from Motif to a completely
> > different GUI library, such as GTK or Qt (as suggested by Kay), or
> > possibly to some portable library such as wxWindows, in practice
> > means a complete rewrite, at least of the GUI part of the app. This
> > is a _considerable_ effort. New applications are, of course, a
> > different matter, as is the case where a rewrite is planned anyway.
>
> The EPICS EXTENSIONS have lasted a very long time and we all enjoy
> them.
>
> So, what is next?  Yes, maybe a re-write is in order for the future
> longevity and maintainability. :)
>
> The activity from the Control Systems Studio team has gotten a start
> down the path.

I'd be the first one to applaud if we bury the old toolkits and 
integrate better and get nicer and more portable GUI apps. My warning 
was only meant to discourage attempts to merely /port/ existing apps 
(while keeping the base functionality), because of an unfortunate 
effort:result ratio. A complete re-write always opens up new 
possibilities, maybe even for some simplifications. It still means a 
lot of work. A lot more than may be obvious at first. Who said we were 
short on manpower ;-?

Cheers
Ben

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System