Re: PyGObject and introspection concerns (was Re: [pygtk] PyGTK 2.17 for Windows)

[John Stowers <john stowers lists gmail com>]

On Mon, 2010-07-05 at 15:32 +0200, Steve Frécinaux wrote:
> On 07/05/2010 03:22 PM, John Stowers wrote:
> 
> >>> * People who wrote plugins for GEdit, Totem, or anyone copying that
> >>>     plugin implementation are now out in the cold. The upgrade path for
> >>>     such plugins is "rewrite them to use PyGI"
> >>
> >> I'm not sure I understand exactly how those people are left out in the
> >> cold, but there are several people in the IRC channel working on plugins
> >> support for GEdit.
> >
> > AIUI the python plugin loader for libpeas is PyGI based, which links to
> > gtk-3.0, which means there is no upgrade path for those plugins except
> > to port to PyGI (i.e. import gtk brings in gtk-2.0, only one runtime per
> > process allowed...)
> >
> > This does not seem developer friendly to me.
> 
> The idea was to take profit of the gtk+ abi/api break to actually move 
> on and make the application developers' life easier by using pygi 
> instead of pygtk+.
> 
> I don't think it would be a service for application writer if they could 
> use the old bindings, as it would mean that they would have to maintain 
> them virtually forever, which is a hassle, especially since application 
> developers tend to forget updating the bindings anyway...

That is one way to look at it, and as an application developer I could
agree.

However, as an example, take gedit-latex-plugin [1] probably one of the
largest GEdit plugins, and certainly one of the best.

It is going to be unable to be used in the next round of distro
releases, unless ported. As I finish writing my thesis I will not be
able to move to a new release of GEdit. I'm certain similar stories
exist for other plugins in Totem, nautilus, and probably eventually
rhythmbox.

John

[1] http://www.michaels-website.de/gedit-latex-plugin/

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