Re: libpeas, multiple languages, toggle references

[Steve Frécinaux <nudrema gmail com>]

Hi Owen,

On 08/07/2010 12:06 AM, Owen Taylor wrote:
> So, do we really want to promote this as the way we do plugins in GNOME?
> Language neutrality for plugins seems nice, but is a bit of a trap.

Actually, I am perfectly aware of the issues you point out with toggle 
references, I've been hit by those in the past, and it can be painful 
enough even with a single runtime at a time.

But I'm not a proponent of using more than a single runtime at a time, 
be it only for the much increased memory usage, when a single runtime 
would do as well.

I think libpeas is more about letting the application developer which 
language it wants to support rather than promoting the use of several of 
them inside of a single application. If it supports more than one, it's 
because historic users of the gedit engine used python, and at the same 
time there is a strong trend towards Javascript, initiated mostly by 
yourself and a few others.

But the primary goal of libpeas is to allow application writers to 
re-use the same code and the same API instead of copy-pasting code 
around like the mess caused by the previous copying-and-slightly-editing 
of the gedit engine code.

> * Both seed and pygobject use GObject toggle references.

I've not investigated much into this, but you had been writing in the 
past that python bindings should not use toggle references and should 
use the custom reference management facilities offered by the python gc. 
Isn't it true anymore?