Proposal: An Xfce C++ language binding for GTK+

[Benedikt Meurer]

Jeff Franks wrote:
> To Xfce4 Developers,

Hello Jeff,

> [Proposal]

First off all, I've to say, that I've looked into GFC a few weeks ago in 
quite some detail, and discovered some parts where I'd prefer the Gtkmm 
way. These are mostly details, though. In general I think that GFC is a 
good attempt to wrap the Gtk+ API.

I've been thinking of - and working on - language bindings for Xfce for 
over a year now. I have several initial attempts with C++ (using Gtkmm 
mostly), D, Scheme and Ruby bindings (and Olivier came up with the idea 
of Python bindings recently) hanging around on my harddisks. That said, 
none of these attempts satisfied my needs. What I'm looking for is a 
general "wrapper kit", that allows to easily integrate another language 
into Xfce w/o the need to maintain another language binding (as you 
might know, Xfce has only a few developers, and we can't maintain x 
language bindings like Gnome).

We need a general framework that allows easy integration of other 
languages with little to no additional maintaince. I was hoping that 
DotGNU or Mono would suffice these needs, but unfortunately both 
projects didn't make it into a usable state yet, nor did they seem to 
reach the basic goal (sorry Mono guys, but thats my experience so far).

So, thats my point of view. Now on to the GFC proposal:

1) GFC is mostly stable, I haven't discovered any real problems during 
my testing.
2) GFC is a lightweight wrapper (mostly).
3) GFC is well designed (mostly).

That said, it fits well with Xfce's philosophy. There are of course some 
points that need discussion, as mentioned above, but that shouldn't be a 
real problem after all.

I'm really interested to have atleast one high level language binding 
for Xfce and I'd like to help you integrating GFC into Xfce. The 
question that drives me currently is: How would you like to see GFC in 
the future? As a (mostly) separate project or as an integrated part of Xfce?

> Regards,
> Jeff Franks.

regards,
Benedikt