[PyKDE] QString in PyQt4 - Request for Comments

[Tony Willis]

> Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 11:35:55 +0200
> From: "Giovanni Bajo" <rasky at develer.com>
> Subject: Re: [PyKDE] QString in PyQt4 - Request for Comments
> To: "Phil Thompson" <phil at riverbankcomputing.co.uk>
> Cc: pykde at mats.imk.fraunhofer.de
> Message-ID: <01ce01c5d622$d616d5a0$bf03030a at trilan>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Phil Thompson <phil at riverbankcomputing.co.uk> wrote:

> > I'm completely open to making the existing API more Pythonic - this is the
> > time to do it. For example, I did casually float the idea of not using C++
> > types in signal signatures in a previous post - but nobody bit.

> I didn't, because of the reasons explained previously: I believe it would
> just cause more confusion, in the current PyQt design. It's just too handy
> to go looking to the signature in the Qt Assistant and use it. I don't want
> to go check in two different manuals. Until now, PyQt's goal has been to
> adhere as much as possible to Qt, to not confuse existing Qt users and I
> think it's a noble goal. I also understand that this is not ideal for a
> Python-only programmer.
> --
> Giovanni Bajo

My $0.02 worth of option on this issue. I feel its indeed important that
there be a Python interface to Qt that reflects the C++ interface as
closely as possible. Whenever I have a problem or need to find out
something about a Qt class member I first bring up Assistant and look there.
I wouldn't want to have to remember that I'm using PyQt and first
look in some other manual. I use another python package which interfaces
to a 3rd party add-on package that makes use of Qt (Qwt). There are
some calls in PyQwt which do not correspond to the C++ interface
(yes, I realize that sometimes modifications cannot be avoided). However
I've wasted time in the past trying to figure out why something
wasn't working only to have to grope deeply into the PyQwt docs to
discover that the Python interface was different to the Qwt C++ method.

I have no objection to someone developing a 'Pythonic' (I'm always
curious as to exactly what this means) wrapper interface to Qt if they
wish, but I think it important that lower level interfaces be available
as much as possible.

Cheers

Tony
___________
Tony Willis
National Research Council   Tony.Willis at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
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