[PyKDE] Re: QString vs PyString

[Jim Bublitz]

On Friday 03 June 2005 11:40, Matej Cepl wrote:
> James Emerton wrote:
> > This all leads me to thinking about the strategies used whenan API
> > targeting one language is wrapped for some other language with
> > different idioms and culture.  In many cases, utility types (such as
> > QString, QDate[Time]) have fully capable couterparts native to the
> > environment in which the developer is using.  What is the advantage to
> > wrapping these types, as opposed to mapping them to native types?
>
> And why do you have to use QString at all? Cannot you just use Python's
> native strings/unicode strings? Read more about the relationship between
> Python's and Qt-string machinery read
>         http://www.opendocs.org/pyqt/index.lxp?lxpwrap=c2029%2ehtm


Because a lot of Qt/KDE methods return a QString.

I view it as a difference in philosophy between simply providing an interface 
from Qt to Python vs. writing a Python-based API based on Qt. The latter 
provides a lot more problems in documentation, complexity and room for error, 
and is probably less attractive to people who write mixed-language 
applications using Qt and PyQt.

I find it annoying to have to use str() or s.latin1(), but over all I prefer a 
minimum of tampering with the Qt API.

Jim