Dataengines, libs and default config

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On September 20, 2009, Petri Damstén wrote:
> I think most of the kde-look.org plasmoids are made with python (quick
>  check from 20 highest rated is about 90%). I personally don't like the
>  idea of letting those to be second class citizens.

obviously the majority of scripted widgets right now are going to be mostly 
python:

* python is well known
* the python engine has complete bindings available for it

we're not going to see JS applets until we have complete bindings for them and 
otherwise encourage the use of JS.

it's circular logic to say "well, we don't see many JS widgets, so we 
shouldn't work on JS support". so, is it worth having JS widgets?

well, the downsides of python are dependencies, runtime weight and no ability 
to provide a version of them that is reasonably securable.

the upsides of JS are going to be size of audience (JS is probably the #1 
dynamic language in the world in terms of people who have been exposed to it 
by a far margin), security, performance, greater portability and ease of 
integration with things like web content. there's also something to be said 
about consistency. JS makes the most sense for in-app scripting when we look 
at the full body of KDE applications and to think that our target users will 
learn multiple languages just to drive various applications well is really 
naive.

so it's not about making Python a second class citizen, it's about giving JS 
the support we ought to be giving it and realizing that we only have so many 
resources to get scripting language support in.

and yes, i think it's pretty <insert expletive> stupid that we have seen all 
this effort put into python and ruby while the much better target is left with 
far too little attention and what attention it gets is by people who haven't 
had much bindings experience in the past. there's some real big picture 
thinking missing here.

-- 
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 Development Frameworks
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