I understand what you say, but you need to understand the side of the
developers too. If we do not decide that a single language is the
official language than any feature that is moved to the scripting
languages needs to be maintained in several languages, that's too much
work for us to do. We have better things to do than maintain the same
feature with more than one language.
Obviously, it is possible that some X language hacker will step up and
maintain a second language. We have that with GUII, but we still have
the XForms GUI as the officially sanctioned GUI. And maintaining several
GUIs does take a drain on our resources, effectively the non-XForms
development is on hold for now since most frontend developers are in
no-free-time mode. We all need to remember that the developers are doing
it all on their free time and for the fun and feeling of accomplishment
that they get from it, I know that I will not want to maintain some
feature in several scripts, though nobody forbids you or others to
maintain them in equivalent languages.
The script language support is not too hard, once there will be a
complete interface for this in LyX, adding a script language will depend
only on how hard it is to link it into LyX, with smart definitions, most
of the binding definitions can be done automatically.
This message gets too long and I have a Real Analysis test to learn for.
* George De Bruin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [010527 09:07]:
> On Saturday 26 May 2001 11:11, Baruch Even wrote:
>
>
> > The need is for an "Official language" not necessarily a single one, but
> > one that is expected to be available in most installations, possibly it
> > will be available out of the box from packages. This is to make it
> > possible to have a library of scripts, and to allow removing things
> > currently implemented in LyX into the official scripting language.
>
> And there couldn't be a standard 'library' of scripts in two or three (or
> more) languages? Then you would just download the one that you want on your
> system. I guess I just look at this and think anytime you select one
> "official" anything you open up the potential for mis-understanding or
> mis-interpretation. Most people see things that are "official" as being an
> endorsement for, or a bias towards the "official" item.
>
> > The implementation as I expect it to be, will not force you to use one
> > language over the other, only if you want the official scripts you'll
> > need the official language. There is a need however to make the
>
> Okay, for arguments sake (from personal experience) here's the reaction this
> will get:
>
> Why is that? I don't have the "official" language on my system, and you are
> telling me that I have to install that language? Mess around with my stable
> system configuration to add scripting support and get full functionality for
> an application? Forget it.
>
> Another reaction:
>
> That language isn't supported at my site. Guess I can't use it at all.
>
> Guess I don't get the full functionality of LyX.
>
> > scripting language easy enough for as many as users as possible so that
> > most of the users will not need to have multiple languages in LyX.
>
> Agreed, it needs to be as easy as possible for the "user/administrator*.
> Therefore, we should support the languages the users and administrators are
> comfortable with. The user/administrator can then download the scripts in
> the language they are comfortable with / want to administer.
>
> Now, I see from a development point where it will be necessary to focus on
> one or two languages for the initial implementation / testing. But, as soon
> as that is done I think the support should be expanded to at least six or
> more languages to avoid any perception of bias.
>
> This is the same as the concept of GUI independence.
>
> Just my opinion...with a little experience thrown in....
>
> --
> George J. De Bruin
> Check Out 0l0rin's New Age compositions at http://mp3.com/0l0rin
> 0l0rin's latest recording "Collection" is available now!
--
Baruch Even
http://baruch.ev-en.org/
