Re: Using C++ bindings for desktop/admin/devtools modules

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2007-03-16 at 20:43 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Right now, modules in desktop/admin/devtools suites can use the python
> bindings. We also accept the use of gtk# for proposed modules. However,
> it was never really agreed whether it was okay or not to use our C++
> bindings for GNOME modules.
> 
> Those bindings have been rock-solid for quite some time now, and we have
> a few applications using C++ here and there.
> 
> Does it make sense to allow the use of gtkmm and other C++ bindings in
> our desktop/admin/devtools suites?

To me, I always felt it was more a question of allowing
a particular programming language to be used.  That is,
we decided it was OK to have Python and C# programs, so
naturally it's OK to use our native bindings for those
languages.

C++ is a bit different from Python and C#, though, in
that you can perfectly well write C++ code using the
base libraries without as much difficulty.  Nonetheless,
the bindings would still be preferable.

We do actually already have C++ in the desktop with
Epiphany, although that C++ code is limited to the
Mozilla embedding, which you can't exactly get around.

So the question is, do we want to allow programs in the
desktop that are written entirely in C++?  If so, then
it would be silly to forbid them from using gtkmm.

(s/desktop/desktop\/admin\/devtools/ throughout)

--
Shaun