From: mccoy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Jim McCoy) Subject: Re: Lack of Imagination (was Re: Wordprocessor ... ) Date: 31 May 1993 01:24:13 -0500
In article <1993May28.151429.4459@wixer.bga.com>, rhodesia@wixer.bga.com (Felix S. Gallo) writes:
> [regarding implementation of a word processing program]
>
> I'm a little distressed by the ease with which people seem to
> be discussing writing this word processor using either extremely
> bad interfaces (word perfect) or generally-proprietary nonstandard
> overweight programming environments (Tk, emacs 19).
Hmmm.... you make some good points, but I think that you either
misunderstand the purpose of this excercise or else I do. It seems to me
that the point is not to make the best word processor in the world or even
make a great one. The point it to have a nice pretty app that can be used
as a selling point of linux. Something people can point to and say "and
this is a GUI word processor that you can use in linux."
The reason using Tcl/Tk and/or Emacs interpreters in the program is because
no one really feels like re-inventing the wheel on this stuff. Emacs has
power (too much in the wrong direction, IMHO :) and Tcl/tk has an easy
scripting language to extend the app once it is created and a nice X11
interface. The choice is to spend a lot of time reimplementing parts of
one or both of these programs or including them into the app itself.
> Be like Linux. Refrain from depending on enormous, overladen code
> which nobody can understand.
Linux is a kernel. It provides the lowest level operations that we can all
depend upon and as such must be fast, tight, and relatively well written. A
word processor is a tool and as such it should be written to perform a
specific function and not necessarily to appease someone else's standards
of code aesthetics. WordPerfect may in fact be a complete piece of shit,
but it is a piece of shit that is used by millions of people every day.
Having an easy to use word processing program for linux may make linux a
possible choice for more people.
Your fears in both cases seem to be misplaced anyway; a stripped down elisp
interpreter is actually fairly compact and the tcl interpreter adds even
less size. The advantages gained by putting one of these in seems to
outweigh the costs unless you are volunteering to write the interface code
and extension/macro facilities for this program. Sorry if you don't know
lisp or tcl, but there are several good books/docs I could recommend... :)
jim
-- Jim McCoy | UT Unix Sysadmin Tiger Team mccoy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | #include <disclaimer.h> pgp key available via "finger -l", on pubkey servers, or upon request