Re^2: From PHP to Perl - Should I, and how?

[Boldra]

Let's be honest, Perl really doesn't do GUI very well.

There are few GUI builders available, and none of them are particularly good. vptk crashes, and Loft doesn't generate code. There's a reason why a lot of the GUI code hasn't recieved an update in years, and it's not "it's finished and it works perfectly".

[webfiend]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but:

Toolkit	Last Updated
Gtk2	13 Feb 2009
QtGui	4 Feb 2008
Tk	18 Dec 2007
Win32::GUI	13 Feb 2008
Wx	6 Dec 2008

Are there issues with some of these? Yes. I use Tk and Gtk2, and those both work very well for me. Qt gave me issues when I tried to install it. I'm on Linux, so I can't speak for Win32::GUI. Could these libraries be updated more frequently? Sure, except maybe Gtk2. But years? Not exactly.

Builders aren't really my thing, but Gtk2::GladeXML allows Perl Gtk2 apps to consume Glade XML files.

Yes, there's a reason why GUI code hasn't been updated as much as we would like. It's because people are working on these projects in their spare time. It's because Web gets all the glory right now for most new projects - in any language, really. It's because there's no point improving the Perl GUI libraries since everybody already knows "Perl really doesn't do GUI very well."

I'm not saying you're wrong on every point, but you're not exactly right either.

[Boldra]

Suggesting a learner write GUI code without a GUI designer is just cruel. As is recommending a language where the GUI designers are years out of date.

OP asked if perl could do GUI. The answer is yes, but if it's a priority, consider a different language.