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Re: Swing vs .NET

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  Re: Swing vs .NET "Lew" <lew@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:35 +0000
    Re: Swing vs .NET "Gabriele" <gabriele@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:35 +0000
      Re: Swing vs .NET "Lew" <lew@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this> - 2011-04-27 15:35 +0000

#1743 — Re: Swing vs .NET

  To: comp.lang.java.gui
Gabriele a |-crit :
>> I'm studying differences between those two architecture in order to
>> choose a setup to develop a completely new application. I'm a
>> programmer with some experience on C++ and PHP and i have basic
>> academic knowledge of VS.NET and Java and a few other. My application
>> is a data driven business application heavily based on GUI and will be
>> deployed mainly on Windows systems, but i eventually may like the
>> possibility to deploy it on Mac (most probably) and or Linux (least
>> probably).
>>
>> Exclude AWT libraries, because their limited choice and heavyweight,

But, but - Swing is a set of AWT libraries - I will interpret your request as 
"prefer Swing components to heavyweight AWT components".  It has no bearing on 
  the comparison of the platforms anyway.

>> choose an IDE as you like (i.e. Eclipse, JDeveloper, NetBeans....),
>> include Swing and eventually some other Swing based libraries.
>> Questions:
>>
>> VS.NET against JAVA about easy of development of GUI and Data access
>>
>> VS.NET against JAVA about speed of execution of the application on
>> Windows
>>
>> VS.NET against JAVA about availability and compatibility on Mac (or
>> eventually Linux)

You say "Java" in some sentences and "Swing" in others.  They are not equivalent.

Swing is a set of libraries that make up /part/ of a Java application, or 
applet.  It isn't the only such in the GUI space - SWT is also widely used. 
How many GUI frameworks are there in .Net?

You say "choose an IDE as you like".  How many choices are there for .Net?

The only one of your questions with a definitive answer is about portability - 
obviously Java is more portable.  The rest are not generally resolvable in 
favor of one platform or another.

Ultimately in my mind Java wins, in part because it plays better with robust 
solutions like Apache Whatever, in part because there is a whole lot more out 
there in Javaworld than Big Brother offers, and in part because I prefer the 
open-software culture.

Also, you seem to be asking only about Swing, one particular GUI library, vs. 
.Net, an entire architecture for developing all kinds of applications. 
"Apples and oranges."  When you compare Javaworld to .Net, you have to look at 
all of Javaworld, and there are a heck of a lot of acronyms in that universe.

I suggest you do two things instead of starting a religious war.  First, 
google for and peruse partisan but technical articles pro and con each 
platform.  Second, download development environments for both platforms and 
try them.  Remember, a scientific investigation attempts to isolate variables.

-- 
Lew

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#1748

  To: comp.lang.java.gui
> But, but - Swing is a set of AWT libraries - I will interpret your request as
> "prefer Swing components to heavyweight AWT components".  It has no bearing on
>   the comparison of the platforms anyway.

I didn't know that Swing is a set of AWT.

I did know that there's AWT and there's Swing and i did read inside
tutorial that main differences between AWT and Swing are heavyweight
and limited selection for AWT and lightweight and wide selection for
Swing. Additionally, i did read in some tutorial that AWT and Swing
are the most widely used libraries to develop Java GUI, so i took
Swing for my case.

> You say "Java" in some sentences and "Swing" in others.  They are not equivalent.

I do know that are not equivalent. In the questions I use Java meaning
"Java, used to develop a business data driven application rich of GUI,
deployed on a Windows operating system.

I do believe it was quite clearly explained in the preamble, but maybe
it was not, as i'm not a natural english speaker and i may have done
mistakes in my post.

It is intended that if you know a better library than Swing, or an
extension of Swing, that offer similar performances and a wider
selection of components, it is welcomed, but i admit that this may not
been clearly explained.

> Swing is a set of libraries that make up /part/ of a Java application, or
> applet.  It isn't the only such in the GUI space - SWT is also widely used.

I didn't considered SWT, as most tutorial i've read about JAVA GUI
talk about AWT and Swing only.
It is surely my fault and i now see that SWT may be a library better
suited to my needs (GUI performance on window and easy of development)
than Swing.

The use of SWT is a nice and welcomed suggestion

> How many GUI frameworks are there in .Net?
>
> You say "choose an IDE as you like".  How many choices are there for .Net?

The choice about IDE is referred only to JAVA because JAVA has
different IDE, most of them quite good, that offer different thing. In
past i've only used Eclipse. I've enjoied it because it's quite
powerful but it's not fit very well for GUI and i've read in the web
that other IDE, such as NetBeans, are tools better suited to
application rich of GUI than Eclipse.
So i needed an opinion here.

.Net has Visual Studio and it is a complete IDE and a quite powerful
tool, especially for GUI, field in which past version of Visual Studio
has always been quite good, so there's no need to choose a different
IDE, if there's one.

> Ultimately in my mind Java wins, in part because it plays better with robust
> solutions like Apache Whatever, in part because there is a whole lot more out
> there in Javaworld than Big Brother offers, and in part because I prefer the
> open-software culture.

Uhm.
My apps have quite nothing to do with Apache and i never consider
position taken by principle when evaluating technical instruments but
i do consider objective pros and cons, and "open software" (or
Microsoft brand) is neither a pros nor a cons by itself.

> Also, you seem to be asking only about Swing, one particular GUI library, vs.
> .Net, an entire architecture for developing all kinds of applications.
> "Apples and oranges."  When you compare Javaworld to .Net, you have to look at
> all of Javaworld, and there are a heck of a lot of acronyms in that universe.

No. This is wrong. You can't compare two different thing as whole,
unless one is definatly better than the other on each and every
possible aspect. You always have to prioritize on your need and the
need of your particoular solution, and then compare tecnologies on the
specific aspects that interests you most and mostly ignore the rest.

In my case i explained those needs at the start.
Being the other aspects similar (both are strongly typed OO
programming languages fit to medium sized app development, both have
wide documentation and tutorials, both support most DBMS and so on) i
focused on my interests.

And i do not care about the "entire architecture for developing all
kinds of applications". I do care for my specific needs. In that case,
GUI and Database access performances and easy of development. When i
will look for a web application then i will compare ASP.NET, PHP and
similar tecnologies, on other aspects, and choose accordingly.

> I suggest you do two things instead of starting a religious war.  First,
> google for and peruse partisan but technical articles pro and con each
> platform.  Second, download development environments for both platforms and
> try them.  Remember, a scientific investigation attempts to isolate variables.

I did Googled a bit and i still am doing it but most benchmark i've
found refere to CPU intensive application (regular expression, math
calculus and so on) and few is told about interfaces development and
performance comparation. Further, many articles speak about specific
language properties, sintax and semanthic, which are interesting, per
se, but not much useful to my needs.
I've tried Visual Studio and i've tried Eclipse and i do have basics
on C# and JAVA, but i can't become an expert on two architectures just
to see which one i prefere.

And over all i definately did not mean to start a religious war.
Programming languages are tools that we use to develop other tools,
not a matter of life and dead.
Be sure that I've seen enough religious war in my university between
Mac User, Linux Geek and Microsoft Evangelist to have had enough of
them.

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#1751

  To: comp.lang.java.gui
Gabriele wrote:
> I didn't know that Swing is a set of AWT.

Sort of, and not precisely.  Swing is built on the AWT libraries, and many of 
the AWT APIs are part of Swing apps also.

The part you are interested in is the components, such as JPanel vs. Panel or 
JApplet vs. Applet, where there are more-or-less equivalent idioms.  In that 
case, the "J" prefix signifies a so-called "lightweight" Swing component, the 
absent "J" signifies the "heavyweight" AWT component.

The terminology is not universal.  Here it means that Swing components are 
written entirely in Java and run only on the JVM.  AWT components use "sister" 
components from the host operating system, so an AWT Panel actually uses some 
Windows-native window on that OS, with a Java hook to tie it into Javaworld.

Lew wrote:
>> You say "Java" in some sentences and "Swing" in others.  They are not equivalent.

I see what you're asking for now.

Since you've already gotten into both the Java and .Net platforms that you 
might find knowing both to be useful.

SWT is not, to my knowledge, as widely used as Swing but it has a following.

I've programmed for quite a few different GUI platforms, including Windows, 
Swing, UNIX Open Look and Motif, to name a few, and they all seem quirky to 
me.  You have to know the gotchas, certainly with Swing.

I suspect you'll find that both environments are roughly equal, with some 
strengths falling to one and some to the other.  I'm partisan to Java, myself 
- the Microsoft Way tends to seem disjoint to me, like Bizarro Superman's world.

-- 
Lew

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