[C++-sig] Pyste/Pyplusplus/Boost documentation problems

[David Abrahams]

"Niall Douglas" <s_sourceforge at nedprod.com> writes:

> With respect Dave, you never have used pyste yourself in anger and so 
> are completely unaware of its strengths and failings. 

Not completely.

> If I were you, I would have tested it myself extensively before
> allowing it into my CVS - it after all will be the first thing most
> users see of your library and often the *only* thing they see. Its
> strengths and weaknesses reflect strongly on BPL.

True.  So it goes.

> Now pyste needed rewriting - it had run into architectural limits. 
> And I admit I had doubts when Roman started saying he was going to 
> write a replacement - admittedly not helped by his poor English. 
> However, when literally out of the blue he sent me a set of new TnFOX 
> bindings about 98% complete I was quite blown away. Since then as I 
> have delved into his source, I realise that he is a very competent 
> coder and has got the design right from the beginning - which Bruno 
> (and my respect to you nevertheless) did not. 

Having already seen one design's mistakes, it's often easier.

> There are still some rough spots (like default parameters), but it's
> very nearly perfect on the generation front.
>
>> Is it a complete replacement for pyste?  What should a Pyste user do
>> in order make his code us pyplusplus instead?  IMO there ought to be a
>> Pyste compatibility layer.
>
> That would be inadvisable. The best thing is for pyste users to 
> regenerate their config files from scratch as pyplusplus uses quite a 
> different configuration model (nowhere near as easy, but considerably 
> more powerful).

I disagree.  If you're going to use a wrapper generator, it should be
as easy as possible.  If Pyste has a reasonably terse, expressive
input syntax that matches the user's mental model (something I
encouraged Bruno to develop and that Roman could have learned from),
then pyplusplus should use it or improve on it.  To do otherwise would
be inconsistent with the design spirit and aims of Boost.Python.
There's no reason a lower-level interface couldn't be available, too,
if necessary.

>> I think
>> http://www.language-binding.net/pyplusplus/to_pyste_comparison.html
>> would be a lot better if it took a more neutral tone; it seems to bash
>> Pyste a lot more than necessary.  Fortunately, this page doesn't seem
>> to be linked from the pyplusplus main page but if Boost is going to
>> endorse pyplusplus, that same information *ought* to be made more
>> generally available.
>
> No Roman is being fair on that page. 

I never claimed it was unfair.

> He nor I mean no disrespect to Bruno, pyste is a good bindings
> generator but it has hard design limits in it and Roman gives a
> pretty good overview of those.

The tone could be more neutral, with all the facts and less gloating
(well, "gloating" is not quite the right word but I can't think of a
better one right now).

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com