[Ktechlab-devel] Thinking like a Real Programmer (tm).

[P Zoltan]

On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:53:58 +0100, Alan Grimes <agrimes at speakeasy.net>  
wrote:

> P Zoltan wrote:
>
>>> C++ is a very difficult language. It takes no less than seven years to
>>> master. Furthermore, the API's for linking in runtime modules are
>>> obscure if not undocumented. If ktechlab is to take off, we need to
>>> provide the user the tools to add his own components without venturing
>>> within ten miles of a C++ compiler.
>
>>   I guess plugins are not intended for the users. They can be handy for
>> _developers_, in order to structure code, or to avoid recompiling and
>> relinking the main executable even for minor changes. ( g++ is slow...  
>> ).
>> In my view the plugins are just about how do we deploy the application:  
>> 1
>> big executables, or more smaller ones.
>
> I hope you aren't actually cleaning the tree before each incremental
> build... I might do a clean-build once every three or four days and then
> after that, for minor changes, only a small portion of the tree is
> actually recompiled and the compile speed is actually quite reasonable
> for the size of the binary...

  Well... true.

>
>>   Someone linked a document from QUCS, describing the models used by  
>> them
>> in simulation. That might be useful.
>
> Yeah, I've been using that. It does have it's limitations though. I
> think the most powerful approach is to factor everything down to it's
> most atomic units and then re-compose them in a verifiable whole.

  The Wire, Pin, Model are atomic for simulation. Or what are you referring  
to?

>
>>   Except the plugin system, what other changes you don't like? The  
>> rework
>> of the way the simulator interacts with the circuit?
>
> Okay, how do plugins work? How do I write a plugin? I know how to write
> a linkable library, but not a plugin... How do you think plugins should
> work in ktechlab? etc...
>

  It should be based on kdevplatform's plugin api. Julian could give more  
details.
  Here is a link to the the documentation of kdevplatform:

http://api.kde.org/extragear-api/sdk-apidocs/kdevplatform/html/index.html

  Also you should check out julian's git repository, and see there how the  
things actually work.