When to write a DataEngine and when not?

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Saturday 27 December 2008, Luca Beltrame wrote:
> Hello Plasma developers,
>
> since I finally got to install the Python bindings for Plasma I wanted to
> start working on a small project. In short, this small applet I have in
> mind would be used as a "search applet" for a specific service provided by
> the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The user would

neat.

> Now, I wonder if this warrants the creation of a specific DataEngine or not
> . 90% of the functions to retrieve data are already implemented, what's
> missing (and that I'd write) would be a part to parse the results (they
> come in XML). As far as I understand, DataEngines work with data that is
> either timed or continuous, while in this case it is the user that will
> decide when to search, so they're not very fit for this purpose.

it's not just timed or continuous, though DataEngines make those scenarios 
very simple. it's whenever the data might be shared amongst multiple different 
widgets or multiple instances of the same widget.

it allows you to put the data management code in one place, and the data 
visualization code in another.

obviously the call is up to you, but most trivial engines, such as what you're 
describing, are only a few dozen lines of code.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software

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