Re: New 'GObject' as base for GtkObject?

[David Benson <daveb idealab com>]

> the gtk+ object, type and signal systems are pretty impressive upon first
> observation, especially because one can make it as fast/flexible as desired,
> since in C you can (actually *must* <shrug> ;) control every single detail
> of its implementation.
> but it is often not realized that certain things are
> implemented a certain way, not because it was the best/obvious way to so
> (for the purpose of a generic object system implementation), but to maintain
> source compatibility for gtk programs over the years or simply because
> they fit gtk's purposes while they would fall short for other applications.
> in the end we wrote/maintained a type and object system that would fit
> a toolkits purpose, not a dynamic type system's reference implementation
> in C ;)


You see, for me the problem is:  if I want to benefit from
all the tools people are developing (and have developed)
for the gtk-type system I have to use it or maintain patches or
something ...

Even worse, if someone else wants to modify it, they would
need to understand *two* similar but different type systems.
That is a *lot* of detail extraneous to the point of the program.
(since the most common interface is in gtk (there's also a cli)).
I find this troublesome.

> so i finally ended up writing my own type system for BSE which has lots of
> analogy to gtk's but features truely dynamic type implementations and has
> it's own parameter interface that is severly improved compared to gtk's
> (lots of code has been traded in that respect between both projects).
> it also routes all object modifications through central points which
> allow for an extremely easy way to implement undo/redo facilities,
> greatly aid object serialization, and of course provide sufficient
> object state change notification.
> of course i also constrained that new type/object system in some ways so
> it'd better suit BSE's purposes, for instance i didn't need all of gtk's
> signal system's flexibility and simply implemented notification based on
> GHookList.

So do you think it is a reasonable thing to derive GtkObject
from BseObject (long long term)?

- Dave