kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jean-Samuel Reynaud <js.reynaud@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

So concerning this feature. You prefer to keep it on hold or I create a
patch without the python example (and code formatting fixes ;)

Regards,
Le 10/01/2017 à 18:23, Wayne Stambaugh a écrit :
> Here's my two cents.  I share JP and Chris' concerns about developing
> python scripts.  As project leader, I can see where a lot of things can
> go seriously wrong.  Maybe we should make it clear that there should be
> no expectation from python developers that the api will remain stable
> during development or between stable releases so I'm comfortable
> addressing anyone who makes fuss about api changes.  I'm also
> comfortable telling python devs if you break it you get to keep both
> pieces.  We are also under no obligation to include python scripts that
> are called by this interface.
> 
> That being said, I understand the usefulness of the python scripting.  I
> don't want to cut off python developers at the knees because of
> potential issues.  I'm OK with this patch as long as we do not include
> any python scripts that get called by this patch.  In other words, the
> user bears all responsibility for the performance of their python
> scripts not the kicad project.
> 
> On 1/10/2017 10:54 AM, Chris Pavlina wrote:
>> What do you do when the internal APIs change and the plugins stop
>> working?
>>
>> I think encouraging people to use this is very dangerous. It is tied so
>> much into our internal APIs at the moment. The more people who use it,
>> the more everybody is going to scream every single time we change
>> anything. We have so much poorly structured code that needs to be
>> rewritten - I'm sure a lot of it *will* be when it comes time to remove
>> the legacy canvas. If we end up with this many users of the scripting
>> API, we will never be able to touch anything again without breaking
>> everything.
>>
>> Wayne, JP: I'm making an appeal to you now to be conservative with
>> what you accept for use with the scripting API. This would be a very bad
>> point to lock ourselves into having to stabilize it as is. I do not
>> think we should be doing this until an interposing layer with a
>> formalized, stable API can be created.
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 04:25:10PM +0100, Jean-Samuel Reynaud wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Just from my point of view:
>>>  We use some python plugin currently and it's not really easy to open
>>> each time python console (and remember plugins name, call mode...).
>>>
>>>  I'm agree with you: During devs of scripts it's crashing and my devs
>>> have to find the rigth way to process.
>>>
>>>  But this kind of feature can increase number of users/devs of this kind
>>> of scripts and raise crash case easily.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Le 10/01/2017 à 16:00, Chris Pavlina a écrit :
>>>> Frankly I don't think we should be encouraging users to use the Python
>>>> API until it is significantly improved. The issues JP raises make the
>>>> API completely unsuitable for plugin use. It's opaque and no users have
>>>> any idea how to write robust Python plugins given the current state of
>>>> the API.
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 10, 2017 09:55, "jp charras" <jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx
>>>> <mailto:jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Le 10/01/2017 à 15:18, Maciej Sumiński a écrit :
>>>>     > Hi Jean-Samuel,
>>>>     >
>>>>     > I think your patch will facilitate use of 3rd party python plugins, as
>>>>     > the current way of executing commands from the Python shell is not
>>>>     quite
>>>>     > user friendly. I vote for merging the patch, but we need to fix some
>>>>     > code formatting issues first.
>>>>     >
>>>>     > Also, I wonder if it would be the right thing to group menu entries by
>>>>     > their categories to create submenus. It could be a simple way to
>>>>     > organize the actions provided by python plugins. Just an idea.
>>>>     >
>>>>     > Another question is about the following lines:
>>>>     > +        if( IsGalCanvasActive() )
>>>>     > +        {
>>>>     > +            UseGalCanvas( GetGalCanvas() );
>>>>     > +        }
>>>>     >
>>>>     > What is exactly the goal here? If it is only about refreshing the
>>>>     > canvas, then a simple Refresh() call should fix the problem.
>>>>     >
>>>>     > Regards,
>>>>     > Orson
>>>>     >
>>>>
>>>>     This is a good work.
>>>>     Thanks Jean-Samuel.
>>>>
>>>>     However, before merging we have to take care of issues which can
>>>>     easily crash Pcbnew:
>>>>     Because a python script can modify the board outside the control of
>>>>     pcbnew edit functions, I am
>>>>     thinking problems will arise with undo/redo lists (invalid
>>>>     pointers), ratsnest data and certainly a
>>>>     few other things.
>>>>
>>>>     Especially for scripts which add or delete items, or change
>>>>     connectivity.
>>>>
>>>>     Of course, undo/redo lists are alway incorrect after running such
>>>>     scripts.
>>>>     This is already a known issue for scripts that are run from the
>>>>     Pcbnew python console.
>>>>
>>>>     --
>>>>     Jean-Pierre CHARRAS
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
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