Re: [tlug] epcEditor

[Jim Breen <jwb@example.com>]

["Stephen J. Turnbull" (Re: [tlug] epcEditor) writes:]
>> >>>>> "Charles" == Charles Muller <acmuller@example.com> writes:
>>     Charles> I am still delighted to see an XML program appear for the
>>     Charles> Linux platform that handles UTF-8 so well.
>> A program that doesn't do input is usually called a "demo", unless you
>> call it "wallpaper" or "screensaver".
>> 
>> I'm sure the program has many admirable features, but for now,
>> "handling UTF-8 well" means interfacing to systems lacking a wide
>> selection of Unicode fonts and input methods.

Hmmmm. I think you are being a leetle rough in that comment. I am sure
epcEditor does its input quite well. In fact it is doing the thoroughly
modern thing and drawing on the underlying support of a modern operating
system to provide it with fonts and IMEs. (Sound of violins gradually
crescendoing in the background...) In fact if I were to download the
demo Windows version onto a W2K box, I could probably input all sorts of
scripts. If I were to set up a Japanese locale here, and sprinkle XIM holy
water over Canna and kinput2 I could probably get Japanese input going.

>> It sounds like epcEditor does at most half of that, and that much is
>> almost certainly handled by Tcl, not the application code.

Not fair. I think it sounds like epcEditor does what it has to do. The
shortcomings (if any) lie with (Unix) Tcl's to-the-letter  implementation of
POSIX's "one locale to rule them all ... and in the darkness bind them"
approach. Until Jeff Hobbs tracks Ulrich Drepper's, er, fixes to the
locale problem, internationalized Tcl/Tk apps are stuffed if they want
to do input from other than their launched locale.
 
>> This is a valid strategy, of course: build on top of an actively
>> developed language implementation and wait for the language facilities
>> to catch up.  But direct your admiration at the parts of the program
>> they did well, not the parts where they simply were smart enough to
>> make the choice of doing nothing.  ;-)

Well, since the bulk of the market will be for the Winblows version, the
language facilities are alright. I'm glad the author bothered to put out
a Unix/Linux version; not that it is very hard to do that with a Tcl/Tk
app.

I'm interested the way the author can put together an app the way he
has, and them ask $350US for it. There are plenty of free Tcl/Tk text
editors around - many Tcl/Tk texts tell you how to write one about
Chapter 5. The SGML and XML libraries are free too. Some bright spark
should throw together an open source XML editor. Of course, for the time
being the Unix/Linux version will have exactly the same input
shortcomings.

Cheers

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen  [j.breen@example.com  http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/]
Computer Science & Software Engineering,                Tel: +61 3 9905 3298
P.O Box 26, Monash University,                          Fax: +61 3 9905 5146
Clayton VIC 3800, Australia      ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学