[Bf-committers] Integration of scripts in the UI

[Chris Want]

> Yes, this was suggested and is an interesting mechanism.  But it's kind of
> expensive, since we'd have an Init() function in each script and would have
> to run the Python interpreter for each available script when starting
> Blender.  Who knows?  If we reach 100 or more scripts there (and I do
> believe that this is possible -- I'll contribute at least 4 myself, soon,
> and I'm not an avid script writer) the overhead can start becoming
> noticeable.

thinkatron{cwant}~$ ls /usr/lib/gimp/1.2/plug-ins | wc -l
     245

When gimp loads, the part of the initialization that says "Plugins"
is under 1 second (the whole initialization is under 3 seconds),
and it is going through 245 plugins written in C, scheme, perl
and python (P3, 733MHz).

> So *if we don't find* other uses to justify this mechanism, it may be a
> little overkill right now.

The other advantage is you don't have to reinvent the wheel: Blender
is GPL and GIMP is GPL -- steal some code!

Personally (and I confess that I say this as somebody who plans to
do absolutely no work on the implementation) I vote 'overkill right now'
rather than 'growing pains in 6 months'.

Chris