[BioPython] gui + pickling

[Jeffrey Chang]

wxPython is definitely pretty nice.

However, Tk and wx not directly comparable.  In general, Tk has higher
level constructs.  It represents the graphics objects you create as actual
objects, rather than pixels in an image, like wx does.  It's pretty nice
for creating gui's in which you may want to move or resize things.  
Instead of having to redraw the whole image, you can just change the
coordinates of your objects.  However, that does incur a performance hit,
which becomes especially severe if you have a bunch of objects.

It's kind of like the difference between drawing with PowerPoint 
and MS Paint.

Which tool to use ultimately will come down to what works best for your
application.  If you need to work with a few objects, that may need to
support actions such as move, resize, or mouse click, implementing with Tk
is easier.  However, if you need something faster, or more slick, wx would
probably be the right tool.


[Gary]
> > Is there a specific reason you guys plan on using TK ?
> >
> > In my python exploits i came across wxwindows (http://wxpython.org/) i
> found this to be much
> > faster under most platforms and to top it looks a whole load better. Just
> a
> > thought..

[Cayte]
>    No, I just saw that the python bio scripts require a lot of code
> inspection to use. 

Yeah, that's definitely a problem.  I think it'll be solved with a
combination of tools, such as your gui chooser, and documentation (hint
for all the technical writers out there ;).  Another thing we should do is
be sure to include docstrings, so that we can automatically generate
something equivalent to a library reference.


> I didn't expect the prototype to be the final product,

:)


Jeff