[erlang-questions] Fear and Loathing in Programming La La Land

[Jan Burse]

Garrett Smith schrieb:
> As for being around, I ran a Java tools product line back in the
> nineties and can assure you that GUI tools drive underlying software
> design. Like it or not.

Could be. One of the early GUI Builders for Java,
that used reflection, came from Borland. It was
not only using naming conventions for setter/getters
but also for event handlers.

A precoursor of this was probably the VisualAge
line from OTI which is already around since <1993.

But the impact of these GUI Builders is not extreme
on the software design. If you don't adhere with
the naming conventions you will loose that the
GUI Builder can work with your widget.

But you will not loose that you can still code
your widget and use it manually in your application.

Also I guess these GUI builders are pretty dead now.
Especially with the advent of XML based markup GUIs,
mash up and scripting GUIs, style sheets,
etc..

The Borland GUI Builder did modify the application
code. It did not generate some separate artefact for
the presentation object. And it did some strange things
sometimes, which one could only get rid off by
switching to manual mode.

But the naming conventions have survived beyond
the GUI Builders. Since they are useful in itself
for memorizing the API etc.. But it is too easy to
say setters/getters, events etc.. are in existence
because of GUI Builders.

I would like to give you my argument again why they
are in existence: Setters/getters, events, etc.. are
not in existence because of GUI Builders, but because
a GUI application needs to modify the presentation
layer and to react on user interactions at runtime.
This is why there are setters and events.

To say setters are there because of GUI Builders,
is the same as saying a car has an engine because
the manifacturer can modify it. Which is utterly
bullshit, a car has an engine since a car needs
something that moves it.

Bye