Why we need to use SWT rather than swing

[Alvin chew]

hi, was wondering why we need SWT rather than swing , and also if SWT really that good as compare to swing .. would sun just replace swing with SWT ? is SWT an open source project ? thank you

[Alexandru Popescu]

Why we need SWT? No direct answer. Maybe because it is an alternative for Swing. Maybe because you don't like Swing. Maybe because it prooves more rapid on some machines. Maybe because it looks/is more native. If SUN would replace Swing with SWT? The answer is no. There are too many applications written in Swing already. Maybe just support both, but I cannot see this happening either. SWT is licensed CPL afaik.

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[Stephen Holder]

I really don't have much to add to Ali's answer, he covered most of the relevant points. We have tried to approach the Swing vs. SWT issue as "SWT is different from Swing in these ways", as opposed to "SWT is better than Swing". Only you know the requirements for your project, we're hoping to give you enough information to make an informed decision.

[Steven Bell]

I would say one benifit of having SWT around, outside of the swing vs. SWT which is better debate, is that competition between the two can only improve both of them. I agree that, no SUN will not replace swing with SWT even if there was no license problem. Personally I think the core library is to big already and would be very hesitant to recommend adding anything to it.

[Gregg Bolinger]

I think that SWT was developed to fill a need for the Eclipse platform. I honestly don't think SWT is good for much else. Unless you want to create another IDE or Editor I guess.

[Alexandru Popescu]

I have never agreed with this (hatefull) X vs Y. I've always believed that competition is a good thing and finally everybody has something to win from it. It is better to have more options to choose from, than just to be required to always use the only available solution.

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[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
I honestly don't think SWT is good for much else.

But, Gregg, I heard and even experienced that SWT applications beat Swing apps in responseness and performance in rendering the widgets... But the learning curve matters... If those are not important issues for a certain app, I guess, as you said, Swing app and SWT app do not differ much...

[Gregg Bolinger]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:

But, Gregg, I heard and even experienced that SWT applications beat Swing apps in responseness and performance in rendering the widgets... But the learning curve matters... If those are not important issues for a certain app, I guess, as you said, Swing app and SWT app do not differ much...

See our other thread Ko Ko.

Ali, I don't know where you are seeing hateful X vs Y. My opinion though is Swing and SWT are not in competition. As I said, SWT was created for a purpose. And that purpose is not to replace or compete with Swing. The fact that people think it is, is because they are forcing a non-issue. Personally, I prefer Swing. That doesn't mean I hate SWT. And if I were creating a plugin for Eclipse, SWT/JFace would be the way to go. It's just like comparing programming languages. They all fill a nitch. I just think that SWT's nitch is a lot more confined. But I believe that was the initial intent behind it's creation. I honestly don't know why IBM chose to create their own toolkit vs going with Swing, but it worked for them so kudos to IBM. But there really is no debate between the 2. If you like SWT and it works for you, use it. If Swing works for you, use it. End of story.

[Alexandru Popescu]

Greg, here is my non-answer :-).

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