Re: Cairo and ISO C++

On 14-01-01 10:23 AM, Herb Sutter wrote:
> Hi, my name is Herb Sutter and I chair the ISO C++ standards committee. Behdad
> referred me to this list as the right place to raise this question:
> 
> We are actively looking at the potential standardization of a basic 2D drawing
> library for ISO C++, and would like to base it on (or outright adopt, possibly
> as a binding) solid prior art in the form of an existing library. You can find
> a quick summary of goals and discussions to date in these two papers:
> 
> ·         http://isocpp.org/files/papers/n3791.html
> 
> ·         http://isocpp.org/files/papers/N3825.pdf
> 
> As noted in the latter paper, we are currently investigating the direction of
> proposing a mechanically C++-ified version of Cairo. Specifically,
> “mechanically C++-ified” means taking Cairo as-is and transforming it with a
> one-page list of mechanical changes such as turning _create functions into
> constructors, (mystruct*, int length) function parameters to vector<struct>&
> parameters, that sort of thing – the design and abstractions and functions are
> unchanged. This would also allow us to track Cairo as it evolves in the
> future, by continuing to reapply the same rules to new updates to Cairo.

Very interesting!  Looks like you already got most of it written down.  I
think cairo is indeed a great fit for what the group is looking for.

During cairo's development, there were some decisions made that we regretted
later on.  I was going to suggest that those be revisited for standardization,
but reading the documents you linked, I think that will go down the same
design-by-committee path that you are trying to avoid.  So, personally, I
fully support the current position outlined in the N3825 document and am
willing to help with the effort.


> We know about Cairomm but it seems to have languished so we are focused on
> current Cairo as a starting point, even though it’s not C++ -- we believe
> Cairo itself it is very well written C (already in an OO style, already
> const-correct, etc.).

Yes, I think you can go straight to cairo itself.  I'm guessing that you
should be able to autogenerate the binding.  Perhaps, using
gobject-introspection to generate a typelib for cairo, then reading the
typelib, transforming it, and writing out the binding.


> We want to make sure we’re doing this in the right way and with the group’s
> approval, so your feedback would be much appreciated. Also, we might want to
> reuse parts of the Cairo documentation in our specification, which we
> understand is governed by MPL 1.1, and we would like to know if this would be
> all right with your group.

I sure would love to see cairo's functionality and quality be available
anywhere C++ is :).

Cheers,
-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/
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