From kde-devel  Mon Feb 22 14:32:15 1999
From: "Yannai A. Gonczarowski" <yannaigo () leyada ! jlm ! k12 ! il>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 14:32:15 +0000
To: kde-devel
Subject: Re: Java bindings for KDE/Qt
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=91969414919374

This is probably not very realistic, but the best solution would be to port
the AWT classes to use KDE/Qt instead of motif, thus offering true 100% Java
integration.


Pietro Iglio wrote:
> 
> At 20.18 19/02/99 -0300, Roberto Alsina wrote:
> >On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Richard Moore wrote:
> >
> >> I have an interest in this. I'm getting very attached to java after
> >> using it
> >> heavily for a couple of years. I suppose what we would need would be a
> >> JNI
> >> binding. I remember that there are some good tools for analysing Qt
> >> headers
> >> (such as the one used by the python binding) and if we could create a
> >> template
> >> binding for a simple class manually we should be able to use one of
> >> these
> >> to create the binding.
> >
> >Yes, I did that for the C binding. And my tool wasn't even really good,
> >it's just a hacked python script :-)
> >
> >The one used on the python bindings is a whole lot better.
> >
> >> What I'd love would be a KDE JNI implementation of the AWT peers so that
> >> we could start having java support that follows the KDE style hints.
> 
> Regarding interfacing C++ classes with Java, I think that a good starting
> point
> can be found at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/formula/j2c++. It's an IBM tool
> to generate Java bindings for C++. You can find a good doc for all main issues
> and you can look at the generated code.
> 
> If we can then adapt the tool used for python bindings (where can I find it?).
> It would probably be of more general interest too.
> 
> Something to discuss is which classes we want in the Java interface. There are
> two possible choices:
> 
> (a) kdecore
> (b) kdecore + KDE/Qt widgets
> 
> If (a) is the choice, Java developers will use AWT or, better, Swing (AKA
> JFC).
> If we choose (b), we will use the Qt event loop and, of course, we will not
> able to use AWT/Swing.
> 
> I suggest (a) for the following reasons:
> 
> - less human resources required;
> - we can attract many Java developers without asking them to learn a new
>   widget library;
> 
> Furthermore, if we provide a Windows version of kdecore we have the following
> advantages:
> 
> - developers could use the excellent development tools (eg. JBuilder, Visual
>   Cafe', etc) available under Windows to develop KDE apps;
> - Windows users could use KDE apps (may be with some limitations);
> 
> Finally, Java could tremendously simplify application deployement, since the
> bytecode can run unmodified on each UNIX platform supported by KDE.
> 
> What do you think? Is it time to start considering Java seriously?
> 
> -- Pietro Iglio

-- 


Regards,
Yannai.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yannai A. Gonczarowski        _____..---======~~~~~=======---.._____
 ______________________ __,-='=====____  ================ _____=====`=
(._____________________I__) - _-=_/    `--------=+=-------'
    /      /__...---===='---+---_'                System Administrator
   '------'---.___ -  _ =   _.-'            yannaigo@leyada.jlm.k12.il
                  `--------'         The Hebrew University High School
"Si vis pacem, para bellum"    http://www.leyada.jlm.k12.il/~yannaigo/
----------------------------------------------------------------------