note: this is the quick first draft, please feel free to refactor and add, but when adding, consider linking to other pages first, or creating a new page on this wiki

Goals

This page is intended for information about how different programming languages are used in OSG software and what's available.

A specific interest for this page is to discuss how to enhance or achieve interoperability between libraries and tools written in different languages.

Audience

The contents are inteded for beginning developers who are looking for basic information and pointers, and for more seasoned developers who may not be well informed what's happening among languages they are not using.

Interoperability

Maintain functionally equivalent libraries in two languages (JTS/GEOS)
Use Swig (GDAL, GEOS)
Use .Net/mono (MapWindow)

Using Swig

How to achieve a robust mapping between memory management in low level language

and in the interface language?

C, C++, Fortran and other "low-level" languages

Many fundamental libraries are written in these languages
These can be wrapped efficiently with Swig

Java

Java is a hybrid in the sense that it's used for fundamental libraries but it is also often preferred also for its high-level features (strong OO). Notable Java OSG include JTS, uDig, ...

Scripting languages

Scripting languages take the burden of memory management and compilation and linking off from the developer.

Python

Perl

Geo:: modules

Programming Languages Project

Contents