Re: [Pyobjc-dev] NGPython

[Ronald O. <ous...@ci...>]

On 1-mrt-04, at 9:14, Dinu Gherman wrote:

> Helge Hess:
>
>> Actually I have written an Objective-C bridge for Python on 
>> GNUstep/libFoundation some five years ago, this was called NGPython. 
>> While it doesn't seem to compile anymore out of the box even on 
>> GNUstep, I thought someone might be interested in ripping of some 
>> code nevertheless. [...]
>>
>> So, if someone is interested, drop me a line and I send you the code 
>> ;-) Unfortunately I won't find the time to look at adding the mapping 
>> stuff to PyObjC, but maybe someone else has ...
>
> Hi Helge,
>
> I think, we've talked to each other some two years ago on the
> Wocoa People meeting in Berlin, and I tried to pull something
> out of you at that time, but in vain...
>
> Apart from that, it's obviously too late to change the mapping
> rules without having some *real* advantage... ;-)

Like Bill pointed out the mapping stuff has some real disadvantages, 
even though they would allow for a nicer API (e.g. without those 
irritating underscores).

IMHO the major problems are documentation and effort. If we would 
rename methods we would basically render most existing Cocoa 
documentation useless for Python users, using the current scheme it is 
easy to use the existing documentation and translate Objective-C code 
snippets into Python. Maintaining a seperate set of documentation for 
PyObjC would be a lot of work.

Maintaining the mapping would also be a lot of work (and the 
development would be even more work). PyObjC development is done by a 
very small group in their spare time, there just isn't enough room to 
do the additional work that would be required for maintaining the 
mapping.

If someone does have a lot of time to spend on improving the Cocoa <-> 
Python mapping I'd spend it on trying to find a way to add (an 
emultation of) segmented method names to Python.

Ronald
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