Re: Begun work on Bonobo IDL compiler

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com> writes:

> > This brings up an interesting side issue - I think the name difference
> > between BonoboObject and Bonobo::Unknown is gratuitous and
> > confusing. How about renaming one or the other.
> 
> Well, BonoboUnknown is really a terrible name for the implementation.

Well, we could change the interface name to Bonobo::Object then.

I don't really see why it makes more sense in some way to inherit from
an "Unknown" interface than from an implementation of "Unknown". I do
think the name difference is confusing. The names match in all other
cases.

Another thing I'd like to suggest is that in the future, the
implementation and not the client wrapper should have a special suffix
- so you would have names like BonoboUnknownImpl or something and the
client would just be BonoboObject.

Finally (as long as I am whining about confusing stuff :-) I think the
fact that BonoboObjectClient inherits from BonoboObject is really
bizzare. An object client is not a special kind of bonobo object;
there is no is-a relationship. They do share some interface - perhaps
this would be better handled by having an abstract base class that
both inherit from.

> 
> My current thinking goes along the lines of: we need wrappers when
> they do make sense.  But in some cases --and I am the one to blame--
> the wrapper are sub-optimal and are downright pathetic.

Personally, I think it makes life more confusing if you sometimes have
wrappers and sometimes do not.
 
> I agree with your first part of the message, but I am not convinced
> that "learning" to use the client side C CORBA API is that terrible.
> I do agree that having a GtkObject/GObject binding would be ideal.  
> 
> When I looked at it, I was convinced that it would required a
> substantial ammount of work compared to what I am doing right now.
> And I do not oppose this idea, I just think it is further down the
> line. 

That makes sense.
 
> > I also think it would be terrible if, when converting an ordinary
> > class in a Gtk/GNOME project to a component, you had to completely
> > rewrite all the client code to use CORBA style access instead of Gtk+
> > style.
> 
> It is terrible yes.  But also keep in mind that internal C apis make
> up for lousy CORBA exported APIs.

Well, one goal of a component model should be to make it relatively
easy to turn existing (perhaps library) code into a component.

 - Maciej