Steve: Thanks for the conversation starter.
As a new learner,for me, the state of the documentation is the major issue. The wxWidgets document is massive and the perl references are spotty. As a result, I bought the WxBook and converted the C++ examples to wxPerl to help with my learning curve. I found the wxDemo format difficult for an initial introduction. The "extra" code needed to integrate it all together muddies the water for a beginner or at least for me. A net search, lists many examples/tutorials, maybe an effort to pull together a wxPerlBook might help long term. James On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 10:45 AM, Steve Cookson <steveco.1...@gmail.com>wrote: > Hi Guys, > > I've been using wxPerl as my main development tool for the last 4 years. > > During that time my partners and I have developed a medical system for > endoscopic examinations. We are currently testing it here in Brazil > in the largest hospital in Central and South America. We have high > hopes and Doctors here are quite enthusiastic about it. > > During this time WxPerl has been a great tool. Not only it is a > comprehensive tool in its own right, but also it allows access to all > the thousands of modules available on cpan, the various support forums > like Perl Monks and the extensive Perl community out there like Perl > Mongers and YAPC. > > But I don't see that the wxPerl community is expanding. I'd like to > see more new users asking silly questions and learning about the > possibilities of using wxPerl for their own ends. > > The world of technology is changing fast. New devices, new languages > and new tool-kits are being developed such as Android, qt, java and > objective-c, but none of these is obviously the "killer app" of > development tools. Qt seems to be a nice tool, but it's probably not > so different from wxPerl, objective-c is too platform-specific and > java imposes too much of a performance overhead. As an aside did you > know that VLC, the open-source video player, was originally built in > wxWidgets? Sadly it then migrated to Qt. > > In the light of this competition wxWidgets is beginning to position > itself as a desktop development system rather than a true > cross-platform tool, which seems to me to be an act of retrenchment. > > Given all of this, I think wxPerl is still a good choice for a new > system. I'd like to open a discussion here on how we might breath new > life into wxPerl and our user base. > > I have some ideas and I'm sure you must do too. Given an opportunity > people are quite excited about the idea of contributing to wxPerl: > there was a lot of cooperative development over adding wxPdfDocument > to wxPerl and it's a great new feature, you should try it if you > haven't already. > > During the development of our system, my partners and I have had to > use number of different technologies and support forums. Many of > these are c++ based but still have ten times the subscription rate of > wxPerl (which in my view is a much easier-to-use tool). > > As an example from my own area of interest, video processing, > GStreamer has a huge number of users, this month alone Gstreamer-devel > ( > http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/gstreamer-devel/2012-December/thread.html > ) > one of Gstreamer's 8 eight support lists, has had nearly 500 messages > compared to under 40 in wxPerl. If we could persuade a small number > of these that developing in wxPerl was easier than c++, we could > double our numbers. But the relevant module, wxMediaCtrl, is not > flexible enough, we'd have to fix that first. Ffmpeg, a competitor to > Gstreamer has a similar number of posts. And I haven't even > considered Avconv, a new branch of Ffmpeg. > > And there are other technologies, within database technologies > Firebird again has 10 times the users of wxPerl but until recently > there was no good driver available on the Linux/Perl platform. And > what about voice recognition? > > Remember how bioinformatics and the human genome project breathed new > life into the Perl user base. A winning applications area can > transform a technology. > > Mark has done a heroic act of maintaining the system and I personally > owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Our system would not be where it is > today without his support. But we should have two or three > administrators of Mark's ability and knowledge (and patience, I should > add). We are all a bit shy about giving Mark the credit he deserves. > I'd like to say here and now, that Mark's professionalism and > thoroughness is a benchmark that I should like to aspire to. > > Let's make 2013 the year that we double or treble our user base. What > are your ideas? > > Happy New Year everyone. > > Regards > > Steve >
