Not everything made by KDE uses C++. This is probably obvious to some people, but it’s worth mentioning nevertheless.
And I don’t mean this as just “well duh, KDE uses QtQuick which is written with C++ and QML”. I also don’t mean this as “well duh, Qt has a lot of bindings to other languages”. I mean explicitly “KDE has tools written primarily in certain languages and specialized formats”.
Note that I said “specialized formats”. I don’t want to restrict this blog post to only programming languages.
I’ll be straight to the point. You can contribute to KDE with:
- Python
- Ruby
- Perl
- Containerfile / Docker / Podman
- HTML / SCSS / JavaScript
- Web Assembly
- Flatpak / Snap
- CMake
- Java
- Rust
Here’s how.
Where is how?
I haven’t seen one project that foesn’t use c++ 😥
There are examples in the blog.
I didn’t realize there’s also a link
Ruby? I’m in. (Although I use Crystal but the syntax is similar)
I need proper and maintained bindings for languages that can and know how to talk to the only portable interface, which unfortunately is C ABI.
With proper docs not referencing and jumping around to unreadable Cpp docs or sources on other places or not giving enough info inline and defering to the weird Qt docs and their custom compiler plugins.
Give me proper ways to build apps integrated without having to jump around and learn 3 technologies I absolutely despise and have no interest on interacting with.
This is my want to be able to create apps on kde.
Although the blog is about all the ways one can contribute with their experiences to the project, I still feel this would bring a lot more eyes and apps to the platform.
Python
Please no don’t make KDE slow.
Good point, but I assume it’s just a development tool
A lot of stuff uses python under the hood, especially in Ubuntu and its deveriates.
And?
If it’s used correctly, it doesn’t slow down things.
Sorry but I need very good scientific proof to believe you. So far everything in Python was extremely slow for me.
Of course, Python will always be slower than C/C++. But you’ll only notice it’s made with python if it is slow, otherwise you won’t even think about it. Many system utils use it, for the convenience of ArgumentParser etc., but as they follow the principle of doing one thing only, but very quickly and well, you’ll not even notice the difference between it being written in python, running for 0.1s, and C, running for 0.01s.
Of course, Python will always be slower than C/C++. But you’ll only notice it’s made with python if it is slow, otherwise you won’t even think about it.
Is this an empty excuse lol?
you’ll not even notice the difference between it being written in python, running for 0.1s, and C, running for 0.01s.
Now add 10 or 50 things like that together and see the difference. One thing never makes a difference but it’s a combination of all of them that does. Ask ecologist for example.
Chaining that together would make a difference if the whole DE would be written in Python, and only on startup. Almost everything you do is broken down into very simple instructions anyway. Instructions that run in milliseconds in every language.
Now I’m going to, and you can’t stop me!
I really hope it’s a joke, mister/miss. Unfortunately FOSS projects leaders don’t seem to mind Python or other slow code that much so it’s on the contributors to keep the projects good.
