[pyicu-dev] Why SWIG?

[Andi Vajda]

> Why is PyICU using SWIG?
It's using SWIG because I used SWIG with PyLucene and it seemed to work well.
(http://pylucene.osafoundation.org)

> Is this to get support for other languages?
No, not at the moment.

> I've found swig-based systems to be hard to maintain and use.
SWIG is quirky indeed but I haven't found maintenance too hard. My main gripe 
with SWIG is code bloat. Other than that, I'm actually quite please with SWIG.

> Have you considered Pyrex?
No, I don't know Pyrex, I barely know about it.
Would Pyrex make it as trivial to wrap all this C++ code ?
If it bloats less than SWIG, I'd sure consider using it !

A few months ago, someone recommended I take a look at SIP (in the context of 
PyLucene): http://www.river-bank.demon.co.uk/docs/sip/
I haven't looked at this too closely yet either.

> Are you interested in getting contributors to the PyICU project?

Definitely !

> If so, I *think* you'd get more people willing to contribute if
> you used Pyrex.

Could you sum up the pros and cons of Pyrex over SWIG ? (educate me)
Thanks !

Andi..