[Bf-committers] Freestyle branch status report May 2012

[Dan Eicher]

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 11:43 PM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> @Tamito, I figured auto generation wasn't really an option here so
> didn't mention it - of course if it was practical it would be a nice
> time saver.

I wouldn't be too much trouble to come up with some pybindgen scripts
to auto-generate the py-api, from what I've seen in the current python
bindings there doesn't seem to be any gotchas.

The pros:
* automagic sub-classing support of C++ classes
* can convert C++ getter/setter methods to py-attributes
* easily rename C++ methods to make them more pythonic
* much simpler to do stuff like __call__ <--> operator() mapping,
well...automatic really.

The cons:
* time -- mostly it's just a bunch of grunt work to cleanup the output
from the header file scanner tbh
* Yet Another Build Dependency
* py3k support isn't in the main repo, only in my branch
* need to remove python stuff from C++ classes (in the long run this
is probably a 'Pro')
* need to change base class methods to pure virtual for the python
sub-classing to work correctly (ie, not let you create an instance of
a pure virtual base class)
* tp_iter & tp_iternext support is lacking -- could probably be made
to work with a little hacking though

All in all time is the biggest issue, I can't guarantee to have this
done in a timely manner since I'll be taking off the middle of next
week for my sister's graduation and to help her move then when I get
back I have to bust-ass to make my rent.

I do think with a little careful planning it's possible to make a 100%
drop in replacement for the current hand-written bindings with some
'free' stuff thrown in like pythreads support and more robust
sub-classing plus all the benefits of auto-generation.

Dan