[Python.NET] Need some feedback on events...

[Brian Lloyd]

Hi all - 

Looking at fixing a problem with events, I'm realizing that 
my original plan has a big hole in it :(

Here's the situation: the framework requires that an event be 
implemented by providing an add_SomeEvent and a remove_SomeEvent 
method.

However, the actual storage and mechanisms used to call the 
delegates registered via those special methods are completely 
up to the implementor of a class.

When you write, for example, a class with an event in C# using 
the MS tools, you get:

  - add_* and remove_* methods

  - a private internal field to hold the delegate

You do *not* get an automagic method to fire the event, because 
the class implementor is supposed to provide this if it appropriate 
(but may choose not to).


The current Python.NET event stuff expects this setup, and it 
allows you to treat the event as a callable object - when you 
call the event, it tries to call that internal delegate.

The problem is that its wrong :) According to everything I can 
find, a class is supposed to provide an 'OnSomeEvent' method to 
fire an event if it is appropriate for client code to fire the 
events of the class explicitly. If a class does not provide an 
'OnSomeEvent' method, then it is assumed that it is not 
appropriate for the event to be fired by a client (and there is 
in fact no reliable way for the client to even try, since the 
dispatching to subscribers is purely internal to the class and 
could be done in arbitrary ways).

I'm tempted to remove the ability to call event objects directly 
from Python, as this would match the convention and what you'd 
have to do in C# or VB, etc. (you'd call the OnSomeEvent method 
instead).

The alternative would have to be doing some kind of automagical 
thing where we'd try lookup up an OnXXX if the usual private 
event field wasn't there, but that seems nasty...

thoughts?


Brian Lloyd        brian at zope.com
V.P. Engineering   540.361.1716              
Zope Corporation   http://www.zope.com