Design
SWT is a wrapper around native code objects, such as GTK+ objects, Motif objects etc. Because of this, SWT widgets are often referred to as "heavyweight", evoking images of a light Java wrapper around a "heavy" native object. In cases where native platform GUI libraries do not support the functionality required for SWT, SWT implements its own GUI code in Java, similar to Swing. In essence, SWT is a compromise between the low level performance and look and feel of AWT and the high level ease of use of Swing.
According to the Eclipse Foundation, "SWT and Swing are different tools that were built with different goals in mind. The purpose of SWT is to provide a common API for accessing native widgets across a spectrum of platforms. The primary design goals are high performance, native look and feel, and deep platform integration. Swing, on the other hand, is designed to allow for a highly customizable look and feel that is common across all platforms."
It has been argued that SWT features a clean design, in part inspired by Erich Gamma of Design Patterns fame.
SWT is a simpler toolkit than Swing, with less (possibly) extraneous functionality for the average developer. This has led some people to argue that SWT lacks functionality when compared to Swing.
James Gosling, the creator of the Java language, has argued that SWT is too simple, and that SWT is a difficult toolkit to port to new platforms for the same reason that AWT used to have porting problems: that it is too simple, too low level, and too tied to the Win32 GUI API, leading to problems adapting the SWT API to other GUI toolkits, such as Motif and OS X Carbon.
Although SWT does not implement the popular Model-View-Controller architecture used in Swing and many other high level GUI toolkits, the JFace library, which is developed as part of the same Eclipse project, does provide a platform-independent, higher-level Model-View-Controller abstraction on top of SWT. Developers may choose to use JFace to provide more flexible and abstract data models for complex SWT controls such as trees, tables and lists, or access those controls directly as needed.
Read more about this topic: Standard Widget Toolkit
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)