Using scripting languages for KDE4 main modules

[Guillaume Laurent]

Stephen Leaf wrote:
> On Tuesday 03 October 2006 9:58 am, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
>   
>>
>> You should give Python and Ruby a spin. Python's syntax may be
>> off-putting (I thought the same initially) but when you actually try to
>> write something with it, it really doesn't get in the way. And even
>> though I much prefer Ruby (both syntax and features), Python's single
>> coding style is an advantage.
>>     
> I hardly see a single coding style as an advantage.. Unless of course that 1 
> coding style is your preferred coding style.
>   
Not when dealing with shared codebases.

> I can see numerous problems with the indentation block idea python uses.
>   
Yes, so can plenty of people, yet somehow all these Python programmers 
seem to cope just fine, and have been doing so for quite some time. So 
perhaps these numerous problems aren't that big after all.

> As for ruby, all of the examples I looked at made my head spin. I found I 
> almost had to read every line backwards in order to figure out what it was 
> trying to do. Those "simple" examples just made my head spin with the "Why?" 
> and "could they have possibly made this any more complex?"
> half of them I couldn't even figure what they were doing even with the 
> description of what it did.
>   
The only "strange" part of Ruby's syntax is the handling of closures : 
obj.dosomething { |arg| fumble(arg) } . It's actually pretty simple and 
once you understand how to use it (takes about a minute following a good 
tutorial), you really get hooked :-). (and both Python's and Perl's 
equivalent are way uglier).

> Ok anyone that I've ever talked to when the language "javascript" is mentioned 
> complete applications written in it is not even thought of. That is what I 
> based it off of. 99% of the time web page script is thought of.
> When I first heard of kjs I was thinking just scripting applications. 
> definitely not a complete program written in it.
> I agree 100% that it is good to script applications, but not to write one from 
> scratch.
>
>   
But we're talking about a language to develop complete apps with here, 
not to script existing ones.

-- 
Guillaume
http://telegraph-road.org