[Kde-bindings] ruby bindings

[Richard Dale]

On Tuesday 29 April 2003 7:16 pm, Alexander Kellett wrote:
> i'm getting really bored of c++ programming and
> would like a bit of a change. therefore, i was
> thinking, maybe its time for me to help you guys
> on some ruby bindings. (whoever it is that wishes
> to do so that is :))
>
> anybody mind getting me up to date on the state
> of things?, iirc. richard was about to embark
> on a ton of work, but, i haven't seen anything
> from him in a while. (sidenote: richard i'm the short
> stupid looking english guy that was at fosdem)
> whats the status on smoke and stuff like that
> is the magic ready yet or still getting better
> and better as the years pass on? ;-)
Um, I'm afraid I've been having a bit of an existential crisis with work on 
bindings recently - who cares! But I'm short, English and stupid too - I 
think we may have a common perspective :). And at least geekiness doesn't 
appear to decay with advancing years. A year ago there were several books 
about C++ KDE programming (eg 'KDE Programming Bible etc), and now there 
aren't any at all in my local bookshop. So at this stage C++ KDE apps seem to 
be written by 'wizards' who can manage without much documentation. If it's 
hard to find out about how to write C++ KDE apps, then what chance have 
programmers who would like to use languages like java or ruby? But I'm happy 
to ignore the rest of the world though, and carry on with blind faith..

I expected people to be using the KDE C++ api to write complex applications 
like trading systems by now, and then they'd like like to adopt RAD type 
languages to speed things up further. But we haven't got there yet. Or what 
advantage does the KDE api have over the Qt one for writing custom 
applications anyway, and how can we sell that to banks etc?

On the other hand, I've been studying XSLT recently - I think a combination of 
an XML database for bindings (headers + compiled lib info + source info + 
other annotations...), and XSLT style sheet based generation for each 
language seems to be the way to go to me. A lot of work though (and each 
language still needs a runtime), and a steep learning curve to replace a 
working scheme (ie the kalyptus header parsing utility). 

> i'd really like to just get on with apps. but,
> thats not going to work. swig and stuff like that
> appears to blow (excuse the pun). and afaik thereI=
> are no working ruby bindings other than those atm.
> though i might be wrong of course :)
It shouldn't be too difficult to write a Qt smoke adaptor for ruby - that is 
still the best way forward. Should we try and have a look at seeing what's 
involved - I think so yes, so lets discuss it on this list..

-- Richard