[Cialug] GUI Programming

[Don Ellis]

Everything is somehow derived from previous practices. Usually the
derivation is covered up with some kind of syntactic sugar, but if you
squint and look at it just right out the corner of your eye, you can see
the connections.

The big difference between "event-driven" and "logically called methods" is
just what is doing the method calling. The event of something happening is
checked frequently in the background and a flag is set. The list of
handlers is checked to see if there's a handler for the flag. If there is,
the first one receives the call. If not, the event is ignored. If there's
more than one, the first one might decide to pass the call on to the next
one [and so on until some handler decides to take the signal].

Similarly, a method attached to an object is really a subroutine attached
to a data item.

Do I hear concurrence that this explains the connection? [Please forgive
and/or expand on any over simplifications]

--Don Ellis


On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 8:24 PM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, yes.  It *is* the event-driven nature of it that confuses me.  I
> get it now, that it's event-driven, and I've told my mind to
> understand that.  But the event-driven methods appear to be very very
> similar to logically called methods.  I've not learned to
> differentiate them and so it seems like magic is happening somewhere
> and I hate magic.
>
> It'll click at some point, hopefully.
>
> --
> Todd
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Scott Yates <Scott at yatesframe.com> wrote:
> > I am not sure if this is the problem, but one of the big things to
> realize
> > about most modern GUI programming is that it is "event driven".
> >
> > This is probably not where your confusion lies, but just in case I
> thought
> > I would mention it.
> >
> > If you need more to read:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event-driven_programming
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I hate it when programming books use card games or pizza ordering
> >> programs to aid learning of the language.  It fails to interest me.
> >> O'Reilly has some sort of magical voodoo stuff they use to get around
> >> having to use games and pizza, and yet still teach you a language.
> >> Other publishers could learn something from them, I think.
> >>
> >> I'm not a professional programmer, but it does take up a good chunk of
> >> my workday.  I'm taking a second level programming class right now at
> >> Simpson, based on Java.  Last time I took a Java class it was taught
> >> by an evil villain (the guy wore all white suits and a pink bowtie)
> >> and I was scarred.  This time it's going better, though.  The
> >> instructor is very cool and we're not creating pizza programs.  But I
> >> have trouble understanding GUI programming.  I feel like there's some
> >> basic lesson where they explained the reasoning, the concepts, the
> >> things you're supposed to keep in mind, that I missed.  I'm great with
> >> logic, and I grok the whole object oriented thing.  Not a prob.
> >> Polymorphism.  Inheritance.  Cool stuff.  But I don't get GUI
> >> programming.
> >>
> >> Question: If you are a programmer, how often do you program GUIs?
> >> Visual stuff other than markup?
> >>
> >> --
> >> Todd
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Cialug mailing list
> >> Cialug at cialug.org
> >> http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cialug mailing list
> > Cialug at cialug.org
> > http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> _______________________________________________
> Cialug mailing list
> Cialug at cialug.org
> http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
>