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..
4Dec04 CMcC almost all of the well developed OO systems are extended to provide megawidgets, so I don't think you can answer your question before asking what 'maintaining the feel of tcl' means, and that's a very big and vexed question.
I'm want to know, here, about significant differences between what the perfect OO system needs, and what the perfect megawidget system needs. I think that question needs an answer before we can really talk about unification.
4Dec04 SRIV 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.