Scriptengines and other language bindings: what to do?

[Luca Beltrame]

Hello Plasma people,

I noticed the commit by Aurelien that disabled the Python script engine and 
that got me thinking, given that I've worked on that and in bindings in the 
past (although I stress, I am *not* a maintainer). 

I think that with QML and the components provided by the Plasma libs, extra 
bindings are less necessary now. I would think that support for KF5 bits would 
be very welcome, but for the workspace I'm not so sure.

My rationale is:

-They add complexity and usually they are developed by people outside the 
Plasma team, yet they reside in the Plasma repository;
- Each of the bindings has its unique characteristics depending on the 
language it ties to, which can mean crashes or odd behaviors when used by 
other people
- There's an additional load on testers and triagers because bugs in the 
script engines might end up on the shoulders of the Plasma team, which are 
possibly not the best people to fix them.

In short, and I say this as a person who did a lot on bindings, I would 
suggest to remove script engines from the Plasma repository: I'd much prefer, 
if someone ever wanted to hack on them, to have them *outside* the repo and 
under a clear maintenance that's not on the already burdened core Plasma team.

If you agree with this I can perform the removal at least on the Python 
scriptengine.

Opinions?

-- 
Luca Beltrame - KDE Forums team
KDE Science supporter
GPG key ID: 6E1A4E79
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