I have noticed, in discussions of OO under tcl, a tendency to confuse Objects and Megawidgets. This page is to discuss similarities and differences betwee n the two concepts.
While it's tempting to see the similarities (e.g. encapsulation,) there are also possibly significant differences (e.g. composition.)
It's my belief that if a given OO system happens to be perfect for Megawidgets, that's a happy coincidence, but I have a nagging suspicion that one of the historical reasons OO hasn't taken off in tcl is that it keeps getting confused with the needs of Megawidgets. If there was an excellent OO and an excellent Megawidget system, it wouldn't bother me as much as if one had to be distorted to suit the other. -- 4Dec04 CMcC
4Dec04 SRIV A question to those of you that have made OO or megawidget frameworks, is it possible to have a unified system that can create objects AND widgets AND types while maintaining the feel of tcl? Discuss..
Another question: If I define a widget in a tcl OO system, why do I have to use the "method" keyword instead of proc? Can't it "do the right thing" and know that I'm defining a method and make it behave as such, without having to use a redundant keyword? The proc would be private to the widget/object, unless explicitly exported, as in namespaces.