GreyWizard's Journal: AWT onomous

I like the concept of the AWT. A consistent look and feel for applications is desirable. Also, having as much as possible of the system -- and especially the fundamentally non-portable things -- implemented in a more efficient language is a good thing. All of the advantages of Java are application focused, which may be why things like JavaOS never went anywhere. The trouble with AWT as I see it is that the interface caters to the lowest common denominator, which is backwards. An interface should cater to the highest common denominator and emulate features on systems that don't have them.

Sure, use a Java tree widget on platforms that don't have tree widgets, but give me an AWT interface that makes it impossible for me to tell that native code isn't being used without a special query. This lets the system improve as the underlying platform does without forcing anyone to rewrite code. Methods that can't be supported can throw exceptions (runtime exceptions please -- I loathe checked exceptions).

The problem I have with Swing is that it has so many bells and whistles that I don't need or even want, but nevertheless have to pay a performance cost for. I use GTK+, so I've already got a theme engine. An AWT backed by GTK+ would give my applications a consistent look of the sort I want. This will happen before long because of gij, but exposing all of GTK+ would either require more widgets or non-portable code.