RE: [Wxruby-dev] Rethinking my Approach to SWIG'ing wxWindows

[Bob Calco]

Curt:

You have my blessing. I too will proceed in a similar vein and we can
compare experiences. Again, as is often the case in generator tools (like
SWIG, Lex, Yacc), the coupling of the python-swig-wx integration to the
python model is too tight to permit a one-for-one mapping in Ruby or even
easy imitation. I suggest rather than attempt to imitate the Python
implementation we expand our studies and look also at wxPerl and wxLua,
which are linked from the main wxWindows site via "Contributions", for ideas
and alternative approaches.

I think we should remove the python i code from CVS and start from a clean
directory structure. Build in little pieces, focusing on the most
fundamental stuff first, and go from there. Swallowing the whole elephant is
not merely painful, it's suicidal.

I am stuck home today, my wife _still_ recovering after a whole week from a
nasty bout of poison ivy, and between honey-do's (which should be few to
none after a few early manual chores) I hope to make some headway on wxRuby.
Wish me luck... ;)

Sincerely,

Bob Calco

%% -----Original Message-----
%% From: address@hidden
%% [mailto:address@hidden Behalf Of Curt
%% Hibbs
%% Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 7:05 AM
%% To: wxRuby
%% Subject: [Wxruby-dev] Rethinking my Approach to SWIG'ing wxWindows
%%
%%
%% I've been trying to get moving on SWIG'ing wxWindows and I am
%% having second
%% thoughts about just "porting" the wxPython interface files
%% (although I would
%% still make use of them).
%%
%% But before I get to that, let me say a little about what I've done to get
%% where I am right now. Since I am new to both SWIG and wxWindows,
%% I wanted to
%% make sure that I had a good, working build of wxWindows, and that I could
%% successfully the Ruby samples that came with SWIG. Here's my activity log
%% (the false-steps have been edited out):
%%
%% - wxWindows Installation
%%    - Unpacked the distribution
%%    - Built wxWindows
%%    - Ran sample apps to verify the build
%% - SWIG Installation
%%    - Unzipped the windows SWIG distribution
%%      (includes pre-built windows binary)
%%    - Added SWIG-1.3.14 to my path
%% - Ruby SWIG examples, building:
%%    - Unpacked Ruby source into <rubysrc>
%%    - Built ruby (did this to get config.h, needed by swig)
%%    - defined RUBY_INCLUDE = <rubysrc>
%%    - Defined RUBY_LIB = <rubyrc>\msvcrt-ruby17.lib
%%    - Opened & Built: \SWIG-1.3.14\Examples\ruby\simple\example.dsp
%%    - Opened & Built: \SWIG-1.3.14\Examples\ruby\class\example.dsp
%%
%% As I started to look at porting the wxPython, I realized that I
%% would have
%% to "swallow the elephant whole" instead of taking it in nice little
%% "bite-sized chunks".
%%
%% I tried to identify a minimal set of wxPython interfaces that I
%% could port
%% and then actually test in a running program. This turned out to be much
%% larger that I wanted. Then, on top of that, I would need to spend a
%% considerable amount of time analyzing and determining what is
%% python-specific and what is not (or what is still applicable to
%% Ruby). All
%% this while coming up to speed with both wxWindows and SWIG. And
%% then, when
%% things don't work, figuring it out could be very time-consuming
%% (so many new
%% areas, such much initial code).
%%
%% What I would rather do is take a very incremental approach where
%% I start off
%% with something very simple (like a SWIG'ed wxWIndows interface that only
%% lets you create and destroy a top-level window). This simple
%% start can then
%% be incrementally built-out. Since each addition is small, when something
%% goes wrong you know where to look. The wxPython interface files
%% can be used
%% as a source of "advice" and from which to cut-and-paste snippets of code.
%%
%% So unless someone else has a better idea, that is how I am going
%% to proceed.
%%
%% Once I have that initial, minimalistic api SWIG'ed I will check
%% that code in
%% to CVS and then come up with groupings of the remaining apis
%% that Bob and I
%% (and anyone else) can divide and conquer in parallel.
%%
%% Curt
%%
%%
%%
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