Re: gEDA-user: [RFC 2/6] Plugin system

[r <nbs.public@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Peter TB Brett <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Currently, Scheme is the only available extension language for
> gEDA. However, in future it may be desirable to extend gEDA apps in
> other languages, including possibly as native code loaded from .so
> files.

Extending gEDA with native code plugins makes IMHO little sense. There
are no particular performance requirements in gEDA, and even if are,
it's usually easier and better to patch the source code.

OTOH, scripts *are* useful. GEDA already comes with a scheme
interpreter built-in and I think this should remain a default option.
Not because Scheme is the best language in the world but because it is
a reasonable one, a lot of code has already been written in it and
introducing yet another language in the default distribution would
only add to the complexity.

As for other scripting languages, it's probably best to export gEDA
API over DBUS and allow external scripts to talk to gEDA tools
directly. This would free us from implementing yet another plugin/RPC
system. At this stage, improving the API itself is IMHO far more
important.

Regards,
-r


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