[Bf-committers] Some Ideas for a Blender Plugin System

matmenu matmenu at live.fr
Tue Nov 3 20:04:03 CET 2015


Hi all,
Am 03/11/2015 um 15:14 schrieb Sybren A. Stüvel:
> All in all I can see a few cons: 1) Blender will become more complex, 
> as not only its functionality needs to be maintained, but also the 
> "plumbing" required for the plugin system.2)  Development will become 
> more complex, as different permutations of loaded/unloaded plugins 
> have to be tested. 3) Mistakes in a C/C++ plugin can cause all kinds 
> of crashes of Blender itself. In contrast, an exception in a Python 
> script is relatively easy to catch & handle without sacrificing 
> Blender's stability. 4) Compilation of the code into libraries is 
> difficult, as it is very unlikely that all plugin developers will have 
> access to all OSses that Blender runs on. Sorry for this depressing 
> post, but I think we should discuss whether we want such a plugin 
> system at all, before diving into the specifics. Cheers, 
1) The point is to have a better use of the community ecosystem to get a 
faster and wider (for all the diferent publics Blender now has with 
animators, sculptors, 3D Games devs, architects, science, etc...) 
development. So I think everybody will be happy if functionnality 
integration is done better the old way (more reviews leading to more 
integration of community work). The core devs are here the best to 
decide what is the best for them (code and maintain a C API or review, 
commit and maintain master code)
2) Do you have a proof for this claim? I mean, modifier/operator 
combinations already lead to bugs, I don't see why having them as 
plugins/modules would make those problems arise more often?
3) That's true, but then the user decide to install this module, so he 
will report the bug to the original dev, making less work for the core 
ones. Only the problems coming from the core will be transfered, but 
that's already the case with the Python API, so it doesn't lead to more 
workload here, maybe even less or it will compensate for the overhead of 
maintaining the new API.
4) Also true, but we now have a buildbot that can make builds on demand 
for all supported OS. It could be used further by module/plugin devs and 
avoid having to ship a compiler with Blender.
Cheers


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