Re: Using python + pygtk in Desktop modules (was Re: Revisiting the Gnome Bindings)

[Tomas Junnonen <tomas1 gmail com>]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 11:36:32 +0200 (CEST), Murray Cumming
<murrayc murrayc com> wrote:
> We all have our different favourite languages, but I think we are all
> capable of hacking on Python even if we don't all love it [1], so I don't
> think its use would prevent contributions. And it's already widespread on
> distros, so I don't think it would be adding a big new dependency. [2]
> 
> I have some practical concerns about the binding support. Jonathan and
> Thomas, in your proposed cases, would pygtk be enough for you, or do you
> need to use API that is not just in GTK+ and libglade. For instance, would
> you need API-stable gnome-vfs and gconf bindings? If those are not
> available to you, can you workaround it by using C directly from python?

If python-gconf isn't stabilized and included by default, and everyone who
needs to access gconf must roll their own C wrapper, we'll essentially end up
with a dozen python-gconf lookalikes. I can't see how this would be less work
than just building on the existing bindings.

Gnome-vfs on the other hand probably isn't as important. It's certainly in
the "would be nice to have" category, but Python itself provides some of
the functionality of gnome-vfs such as asynchronous IO, easy to use
sockets, opening files remotely over a few common protocols etc.

> By the way, these python bindings are not necessarily unavailable, but you
> should make your requirements clear, because someone has to support them
> and keep them on the GNOME schedule.

I guess what we need also depends on how we define a GNOME application
these days. It used to be that you should use gnome_init, gnomeui, gnome-vfs,
etc. Nowadays a lot of the former is on the way out and gnomeui is being
deprecated.

I would now consider any app that tries to follow the HIG and uses gconf to
be a GNOME application.

> I realise that a Desktop module's dependencies don't need to be API-stable
> (for instance, gstreamer), but I think that a widely-used dependency
> probably should be, like any "development platform".

> [1] I am a strongtypist. It makes me happy.

In that case you'll be happy to know that python is strongly typed ;)
Think of strong/weak typing and static/dynamic typing as a 2D plane
within which languages fall:

Python uses strong dynamic typing.
Perl uses weak dynamic typing.
C uses weak static typing.
Static and strong typing is used by languages like Haskell.

>   b) People who love the C# language might think that Python is a
> competitor. But both languages are popular, and will continue to be for
> a long time.

I like both Python and C#, perhaps the later a bit more, and would like to
see both supported in GNOME. However at this point I realize that only
Python has a chance of being adopted and I'll settle for that.

Regards,
Tomas