[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Programming Questions 2

[From: Karoliina Salminen]

Hi,

> So far i have choosed to use expat because i think it is more suitable
for running in NOKIA 770 because it doesnt need much memory. Is my
decision correct?

I don't know. I would use libxml2 because I have found it to be good, but
use what you find best suitable for you. libxml2 runs on 770
anyway and it is not question if it works, it works. There is even working
example code on my web page. Bad quality though from old
unmaintained project (it is unmaintained because no-one is contributing to
it currently) - I mean the qt speaker designer code. I used libxml2 to
parse  xml and kind of misused it to write it not so elegantly. There are
better ways to use libxml2 but if you want to see how to start using it,
you can look at the code.

You talked about memory efficiency and then you talked about python later
on. What are you meaning? If you are using python, you'll be wasting a lot
more memmory anyway than if you would be using C and libxml2.

> 2. question
> Also i want to use GSList form GLib to create lists in my project. Do
you think that i would have a problem to compile and run my application
on armel and NOKIA 770?

Well, I am not a glib expert as I prefer to use C++/STL instead,
but anything from glib should work.

As a sidenote, STL by the way works too, if you
compile a CPP class to your project and use it through C-interface. I
tried it when coming back from Guadec, I created a simple class which
contained a STL container. Then I created function interface to access
that class from C. Compiled and worked out of box with the class joined to
maemo-af-desktop.

> 3. question
> i choosed to use gtk commands in order to create my graphical interface
instead of using python.

?? Didn't understand.
As far as I know, with python (as a non-python coder currently), you need
to use functions provided by
the gtk library (the python bindings of it). Python is not a user
interface designer tool like Gazpacho but a interpreted high level
programming language.

> Do you think that my development time would be
> slow and my interface of lower quality. Also there is Gazpacho available
(but i cant run it for some reason), do you think i should use it?

Gazpacho is a tool that can be used to draw the UI.
apt-get install gazpacho

Best Wishes,
Karoliina
-- 
http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/blog