Re: Scripting in Gnome

[Rob Adams <readams readams net>]

What advantage does a crappy language without useful and powerful
language features have over the already-standard, powerful, fast,
well-understood python and perl?  I would put forth that we'd have to
have a clear, demonstrable advantage before we throw all that
pre-existing effort on the floor and start something from scratch. 
Something more than "perl is overkill".

-Rob

On Mon, 2004-02-02 at 10:35, jamie wrote:
> > Perl and python are both highly optimized, small and fast cores.  A
> > custom language would not be and would have far less functionality. 
> > Most everything in Perl and Python are implemented as libraries which do
> > not need to be loaded if they are not used.
> Minimal functionality is needed for a simple script engine. IE u dont
> need OO or types (all types are variant in VBA/javascript) or tons of
> built in functionality. IMO python and perl r overkill in that respect.
> 
> 
> 
> > That is the chicken before the egg problem.  Rarely are things just
> > accepted into the Gnome core.  They have to prove their worth first. 
> > Personaly I think Gnome is taking the right path with the language
> > binding releases.  Plus technology's like DBUS will make it simpler to
> > communicated with non-bound object.  What you might be happy with is the
> > Mono project which may become part of the Gnome core at some point but
> > it has a lot of hurdles before that happens.  Basically with Mono only
> > one set of bindings need to be produced and any language that can target
> > .Net can use them.  This includes VB if you are so inclined.    
> 
> Mono will never become an *official* part of Gnome due to politics (SUN
> would go ape sh1t if it happened). Also the VB in mono and .Net is
> radically different to VB and is thus completely incompatible. The
> scripting I am proposing is at the same level as VBA - it is not a full
> blown language for developing big apps. Its designed for glue,
> automation and building small apps. 
> 
> 
> > And maintainability suffers because of it.  Code in HTML just sucks
> > IMHO.  Code should reside separately with the XML only being a
> > template.  Model/View rocks.
> You can do that anyhow in XML using include files - one for
> interface/one for code
> 
> > 
> > >  A simple generic scripting interface
> > > with syntax defined by XML is a quick and easy way to getting integrated
> > > scripting into Gnome with the least overhead. The only objects that the
> > > scriptiong language should use are bonobo and/or glade.
> > 
> > So your talking about the same thing that orbit does except that ORBit
> > uses IDL's instead of an XML interface.  As I said scriptability really
> > falls on the applications to construct interfaces on which one can call
> > on.  I think DBUS will really be the unifying force here across desktops
> > and on through all the lower layers.  No need for yet another arbitrary
> > language. 
> 
> No the XML will make use of Bonobo/Orbit not replace it. Again Im
> talking about mini scripts here - its nothing that competes with Perl or
> Python. All it is is a generic script engine which enables scripts to be
> used in any language whoose syntax is defined using an xml definition. 
> 
> VBA is needed anyhow for things like Gnumeric if they want to achieve
> compatibility with Excel
> 
> > 
> > --
> > J5
> 
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