Re: [Indic-computing-devel] Re: NCST Indix Examined

[Keyur S. <key...@ya...>]

--- "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@ya...> wrote:
> Let me just add that I tend to think that adding support
> for rendering
> complex scripts through an extension or a toolkit may
> make it hard(er) to
> port existing X apps (XEmac, Mozilla, etc.) to support
> Indic Languages, but
> that is a trade-off we may have to live with, esp. if it
> involves a
> grievous violation of the X Protocol.  Maybe I was just
> being too
> revolutionary in my thinking.

On this point I am fully agree with Koshy's idea that we
should write an extention. X has been evolved through
extentions. Writing an extention and then incorporating
them into various applications is a long process. However
in my opinion this is accceptable solution which may be
proved better in long duration. Changing or breaking X
protocol is definately not a great idea. Provision is there
for you to define new data structure and write an
extention. So why not to take advantage of it?

While starting my work on IndiX, I also decided to give
support using an X extension. But unfortunately, I had to
work under strictly imposed constraints :-( esp. that
applications should not be modified for Indian language
support. So I did the thing in whatever way the people
wanted me to do and also tried to do it in best possible
way!

(I have downloaded test suite. But I think I'll have to
read documents before running it. At the moment I am busy
with preparation of IndiaSoft exhibition to be held in
Delhi. So after 24th Feb only I'll be able to test it). 

> However, if we modified the X system in a well-understood
> what, the
> behavior of which was well-documented and easy to reason
> about, than the
> approach Keyur took, that forfeits 100% compatibility for
> existing
> applications, but does a good job for developing new
> applications and
> porting popular existing applications for use in the
> Indian market, this
> does not seem like an unreasonable direction.  For
> instance we have lived
> with both System V and BSD now for over thirty years, so
> I dont see why
> this couldnt co-exist with "Standard" X.  Maybe once
> again Im being too
> revolutionary...

And we also have two desktop environments in X (KDE &
GNOME). ;-)

Regards,
Keyur


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