Introspect data from Python missing return parameters

[John (J5) Palmieri]

On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 12:12 +0200, Tako Schotanus wrote:
> The job of the caller? Then why have types at all, why not have every 
> method just take a v parameter and be done with it? ;-)

Types are already sanitized by D-Bus.  The points of the types are to
fit in with typed languages.  Obviously they need them.  The purpose of
the bindings as I see them are to take D-Bus and fit them into the
language being bound and to hide D-Bus as much as possible.  We can't
have completely transparent bindings so in areas they show through
however I am loath to force typing on an untyped language.  If Python
ever gets typing I will use that information but I feel it works fine
the way it is.

As an aside we don't rely on introspection data.  It is there for
hinting only in the Python bindings.

> I agree that because DBus is bound to be used with a lot of weakly typed 
> languages assuming v would be logical but on the other hand that would 
> maybe make it necessary to have have an explicit way of saying that a 
> method has no return value. Or should we just live with  every method at 
> least returning v, even in strongly typed languages?

I have thought of this.  Actually in Python even if there is no argument
to return we return an empty message so there is always a reply.  I will
add a switch to calls for ignoring replies as an optimization.  

> I also think it would be worthwhile to stimulate people to make their 
> introspection data as complete and correct as possible otherwise lazy 
> programmers will just leave it out and we would lose a host of 
> interesting possibilities with respect to auto-generated apis, discovery 
> tools and who knows what. (Personally I'd make introspection data 
> mandatory ;-)

These are the same arguments typed and weakly typed proponents had had
for ages.  My first goal is to make D-Bus a good fit for Python not
Python a good fit for D-Bus.
 
-- 
John (J5) Palmieri <johnp at redhat.com>