Strk - Thanks for the feedback. Some more thoughts below.
I think this boils down to three major decisions about the SWIG bindings that need to be agreed on:1. What geometry model do clients work with? Just geometry or geometry, point, line, etc.Clients should only work with the C api, unless willing to follow API revolutions for a couple of years.2. What compatibility benefits does the C api provide beyond the benefits of the generated swig bindings?The C interface will be careful maintained binary compatible between versions.
Yes, but I don't think that matters for the bindings. Binary compatibility is not needed because Python/Ruby dynamically load the bindings library and then have APIS that install the right Python/Ruby classes/methods (things like define_class("foo"), add_method("foo", "bar"). So Ruby and Python do not rely on the method layout and signatures of the shared library to remain the same in contrast to a C or C++ program would.
As an example - the change from GEOS 2.2 to GEOS 3.0 from a client perspective would not be noticed except for the fact that the default coordsequence class changed if I remember correctly (having a whole class removed does matter of course). Even the exceptions - whose inheritance hierarchy is of course different, look exactly the same to the client. The bindings do a pretty good job of insulating clients.
3. How much of GEOS's api gets exposed to clients?The smallest possible. Ideally none :)
:) You could have been done with GEOS years ago!
The GEOS API *is* the C-API, previous releases were insane in exposing that wide C++ interface.
Makes sense. The SWIG bindings expose a bit more because they are exposing all the public methods of classes exposed by the c api (so all public methods on Line, Point, etc.)
Which leads to another question. Should I remove the PrecisionModel and GeometryFactory classes from the SWIG api like the c-api has done and just use a shared global factory? That would also lead the to the removal of the WKBWriter/WKBReader classes which would be replaced by global methods like in the C api.
Charlie
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