[evaluation] python bindings to netsurf for pyjamas-desktop

i've just learned of the existence of netsurf, and am very excited to
hear of it. i've just tried running it, and i'm ... surprised by its
level of functionality. i say surprised because it's well below most
peoples' radar, and at the same time is damn good! perplexing...

anyway, the reason i'm writing is because, as the lead developer of
the pyjamas and pyjamas-desktop project i need to be able to give pyjd
users more (and easier to install) options. they're simply not c/c++
programmers: they're all python programmers. the windows users are
well served by COM bindings to MSHTML (Trident) - ironically it's the
free software developers that are suffering.

so in 2008 i did the python bindings for webkit (two versions, one of
which was based on gobject with followup auto-generated python
bindings using python-gobject's codegen). pyjamas-desktop has been
using both xulrunner and MSHTML successfully... for a given definition
of "success".

anyway, all of the free software options are deeply unsatisfactory,
hence the reason why i was so excited to hear about netsurf.

some clarification about what i would like to achieve, and what's needed:

* what is NOT needed is "script language=python". pyjamas-desktop
does NOT revolve around embedding of python *into* the web browser dot
EXE applicashun.
* i need to take netsurf-gtk and turn it into libnetsurf-gtk, followed
then by turning it into python-libnetsurf-gtk
* added to that, it must then be possible to gain access to the DOM
functions (from python. all of them).

in other words, the core drawing engine is embedded into a full-screen
single-use window (no "URL bar", no menus, no back button, nothing)
and then python is given access to the drawing engine's DOM handle.
an example write-up of how it all works, in the xulrunner case, is
here:

http://pyxpcomext.mozdev.org/no_wrap/tutorials/hulahop/xpcom-hulahop.html

anyway, i'm curious as to how far along the netsurf project is to
being hackable in order to use it for python-embedded purposes like
this. rather than swamp this list with something that may be utterly
boring to most people i've written it up here:
http://lkcl.net/netsurf/netsurf.dom.txt

much of the experiences described in that draft document are based on
having worked with IDL compilers and Common Object Model Technologies
in samba, wine, webkit and firefox.

the bottom line is that if you have the (ultimate) goal of adding
javascript bindings to netsurf, it's actually not that difficult to do
it in such a way that other languages can play nice, too.

thoughts greatly appreciated.

l.