[Kde-java] Re: GCJ (Re: Build system for KDE4)

[Martijn Klingens]

Richard Dale said:
>> Next to that; Java packages and C++ namespaces are used in different
>> manners which lead C++ people to create huge namespaces and shallow
>> trees, exactly the opposite of Java people.
>> I'm still inclined to do the packages like I proposed before; based on
>> which dir they are in currently.  With classes that may be moved
>> specified using regexps in a config file.
>
> Yes, ok we could just ignore C++ namespaces and base it entirely on the
> directory the include file is in for a class.

I don't think that's a good idea at all.

The goal is not to create a Java kdelibs API from scratch, the goal is to
bind Java to the kdelibs API so that one can use KDE classes in Java and
the other way round.

Therefore the original API is leading and the other language will need to
follow. Anything else makes porting code harder, makes api docs
inconsistent, makes copy-pasting examples a pain, etc.

While I agree that it will make the KDE APIs look a bit awkward in a Java
ecosystem, so be it. When the bindings gain in popularity there will also
come C++ code with awkward-looking code due to imported Java APIs. Still
better than mappings that are non-obvious.

In that light I'm even hesitant to split Qt into QtCore and QtNetwork
etc., or even KDE into kde.core and kde.ui, since those also don't map all
that well to the existing usage and API.

-- 
Martijn