Re: libxml2 in gnome 1.4

[Darin Adler <darin eazel com>]

on 3/23/01 9:28 AM, Miguel de Icaza at miguel ximian com wrote:

> We also need to figure out what the problems are with the new libxml1
> (so I would appreciate if Maciej actually provided a detailed list of
> the known problems)

It would be convenient if Maciej could figure out what the problems are
without doing testing. But he can't. Given my conversation with him
yesterday, I assume that the only problems he knows about are ones others
told him about. He said he hasn't seen any trouble yet, but then again I bet
he hasn't even compiled the new libxml yet -- he's pretty busy with other
stuff.

I haven't seen problems yet either, but I haven't tried to test the
non-Latin-1 scripts yet. I'm not really set up for it.

We just did a ton of testing with the programs using old libxml on various
systems with different character encodings. Until we repeat that, we won't
know if there are problems or not. Given my understanding of the change, I'm
expecting some minor problems that will require new code to handle. Maybe
Daniel can set me straight on this and explain why there won't be any
problems -- I still don't fully understand all the issues.

We could go with "I tried it and it worked for me", ship it, and let our end
users tell us what the problems are. My initial thought is that it's not a
good idea and defeats the whole purpose of doing all the testing we already
did on GNOME 1.4.

I don't see the value of having the one library be "right" if it doesn't
really provide any tangible benefit. Can someone walk me through a specific
example that will really happen with GNOME 1.4 and how it's better for the
user if the new library is installed?

    -- Darin