Programming Language (was: State of the GnuCash project:crhelp) (fwd)

[tripp+gnucash-user at perspex.com]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Dave Reed wrote:

> If gnucash used Python instead of guile, I'd try to find some time to
> help work on it, but I just don't enjoy writing code in Lisp/Scheme
> like languages so I've never become proficient in using them.

I'd be perfectly happy just to get the SWIG bindings back, or some other
general binding mechanism so we could embrace and extend gnc in our own
ways.

I think the GUI's quite impressive, and I use it myself, but I'm not
really (currently) interested in working on it[1] (mainly due to the high
learning curve I perceive, and the volume of code there (which, to me,
makes it hard to conceptualize what I want to do, and what impact it might
have). I have, in fact, tried to fix bugs on my own, but I got frustrated
and moved on to some other task :(

Anyway, my point is that, with a more general language binding mechanism,
it wouldn't really matter to me that gnc was written in C, and most often
extended in Guile. I could write my own code to extend it in Python, and
someone else in Perl, and so forth.

Eventually, I suspect that easy entry point would lead me to gradually dig
deeper into the source and understand more of how it all fits together,
which would make me more able to work on other pieces of the system.

Unfortunately, now, the initial cost of entry is just too high.



> Note: I am not advocating rewriting gnucash in Python and am not
> trying to start a language war, but from my experience, Python is that
> excelllent glude language that Linas wants.

+1 :)


[1] I am, however, particularly interested in "external" applications that
communicate with the gnc datastore, including PDA sync, syncing with my
financial institutions, automated daemons that handle transactions for me,
etc. I'm also interested in using gnc's engine as the basis for a "real"
accounting system for a client, but see above, re: learning curve and
support for my favorite language.


- t.