RE: [sauron@charm.il.fontys.nl: Re: GNOME::Editor]

["Matthew Loper" <matthew loper org>]

(sorry if this is a duplicate! my mailer's misbehaving)

> Hope this is an improvement.

yep, lookin good!

> I didn't try to put in any considerations for
> multiple client support as I really don't know how I should go
> about that (and I don't really see why it would be useful (the
> editors GNOME::Editor is supposed to be an interface for don't > > support
> multiple clients to one file either))

i do think multiple-clients & multithreading are important, but i've
realized that's not in the realm of an interface design. CORBA should be
able to lock down an object, but even if it can't, an interface could be
derived from yours that adds the functions "lock" and "unlock" if it was
really necessary. So, you're absolutely right not to deal with that.

i've thought of some questions below, that i don't necessarily have answers
to. so if it looks like i don't understand something, i probably don't. (i'm
a newbie don't hurt me :)

First, FileBuffers. What relation is that interface supposed to have with
baboon's "Storage" interfaces? It seems like there's some overlap.
FileBuffer seems more readable to me, but Storage more extensible...and
wouldn't a filebuffer need some of the flags in Storage (being able to open
a file readonly, for example)?

On to searching and replacing, & regexps. An implementor could really botch
regexps, right? Seems like that sets up a weak server-client contract. If
joe schmoe tried to make an implementation, he could either botch regexps or
return an "i don't support this function" exception. OTOH, if they were done
right, it'd be really handy for the client. Basically, is there a basis for
standardizing how that parameter is processed, and could an implementation
say "no" if it had to?

Scrolling: does "scroll" scroll to a character, or a line? if you searched
for a regexp, & found its location, you might want to scroll there--making
"scroll" more sensible for scrolling to a character...?

What sort of servers are envisioned as implementing this interface? Could it
allow the encapsulation of emacs as an editor? Could it encapsulate a simple
(non-regexp supporting) editor? It doesn't seem to have much role in
changing the window-position/size/embedding--are there any other interfaces
that deal with that yet?

I know, it's a lot of questions. But these interfaces are pretty important.

Matthew@loper.org
http://loper.org/~mmlop