Re: GSoC proposal: gtk+ bindings for prolog

[Yevgen Muntyan <muntyan tamu edu>]

Jean-Yves Lefort wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:52:09 +0200
> Ben Torfs <bentorfs gmail com> wrote:
>
>   
> > As a fan of both the prolog programming language and the GTK+ toolkit
> > (as a user), I was wondering why the GTK page makes no mention of any
> > prolog bindings. For those of you that are unfamiliar: prolog is a
> > declarative language (like haskell, but very different in the way it
> > works). Until now, it has mostly been used as a research tool in
> > artificial intelligence (theorem proving, knowledge representation,
> > etc.) However, I believe it has a lot of potential to be used for
> > desktop applications too. Haskell too, for example, has also proven to
> > be a success for end-user applications (gtk+ bindings exist). I think
> > prolog is just a breeze to program in, and I would love to push it
> > further! Specifically, by implementing GTK+ bindings for this language
> > myself, as a Google Summer of Code project. Implementing all functions
> > would probably be too much work for a 3-month project, but it could
> > certainly deliver a basic subset, as a basis for myself and other
> > developers to continue working on later.
> >     
>
> It should take much less than 3 months. I've implemented exhaustive
> GTK+ bindings for a language I'm designing in a couple of days.

Then your bindings most likely really really suck.

>  The
> internal API representation suitable for use by a generator program
> can be automatically obtained:
>
> 	- for types and methods, by parsing the C headers
>   

You'll get incomplete information which is far from enough.

> 	- for properties and signals, by using GLib introspection
> 	  mechanisms such as g_object_class_list_properties()
>
> Regarding the usefulness: I would say that for general-purpose
> programming, Prolog is useless, and so would be your bindings.
>   

I bet it would be no less useful than the language
you are designing.

Yevgen