(GObject) What are "properties"?

[dhaude physnet uni-hamburg de]

Hi all,

what are the "properties" of GObjects, how are they used, and how
are they different from the things that can be stored/retrieved
via g_object_set/get_data() ? I've once tried, just for giggles,

g_object_set(G_OBJECT(some_gtk_widget), "foo", "bar", NULL);

and got a segfault. Little wonder, considering that the
documentation in the API reference reads thus:

void g_object_set(gpointer object,
                  const gchar *first_property_name,
                  ...);
object :
first_property_name :
... :

Which brings me to the point, is anybody working on the
documentation of GObject at all? Of course I know this is all
open source stuff, written and maintained by volunteers, so I'm
far from complaining about lack of documentation. Just curious.

--Daniel