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Re: <text-field>, size, GDI context...

In article <38568531.1543E60E@miqs.com>, Scott Ribe <sribe@miqs.com> wrote:

> Bruce Hoult wrote:
> > 
> > I would have thought that constructing GUIs is the one place where it is
> > unassailable that added flexibility is well worth a little dispatch
> > overhead.  GUIs are at the same time so common, so fluid in their
> > specifications, such a pain to set up, and so performance non-critical
> > that they were one of the first big success stories of OO languages back
> > in the days when a 1 MIPS CPU was state of the art.
> 
> Generally, yes. But have you ever seen a 4GL- (or Java)-built program
> where it takes 30 seconds to figure out the layout and display the
> window? We certainly want to avoid sluggishness here.

Yes I have.

I've also programmed GUIs with literally hundreds of widgets dynamically
laid-out using MacApp (written in Object Pascal) on a 40 MHz 68030 or 25
MHz 68040 and had them open instantaneously.

The speed -- or lack of it -- seems to some much more from the O(n) of the
algorithms being used to do the layout than from the speed of the machine
or whether method calls are virtual or direct.

-- Bruce
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