Best way to go about embedding python

[Gregory Ewing]

Michael Torrie wrote:
> And such bindings may need to be two-way.
> For example in Python code you may want to instantiate some new instance
> of game object, and you'll need to make sure that the wrapper code will
> create the appropriate in-game object.

Another thing that can be tricky about this is object
lifetimes. Python uses reference counting and garbage
collection to manage the lifetime of its data. If
your game engine has its own ideas on how to manage
lifetimes of its data structures, you may have
difficulties.

Typically you end up with a situation where each
game object has an associated "shadow" Python object,
with the two joined together like siamese twins.
You need to worry about keeping the Python object
alive as long as the game object is alive and vice
versa -- while making sure that they don't keep
each other alive forever.

If you have enough freedom, you may find it easier to
turn the problem around -- instead of embedding Python
in the game, embed the game in Python. Implement the
game engine as a Python extension module, where the
game objects are all inherently Python objects, and
Python is responsible for all of the lifetime management.
All the above headaches then go away, and a bonus you
get to write all the high-level logic of the game in Python.

-- 
Greg