Subject: Re: Scripting
bob@abisource.com
Date: Thu Jun 29 2000 - 16:04:27 CDT
On Fri, Jun 23, 2000 at 11:10:14PM +0000, Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> Warning: what I am about to discuss is probably pretty contraversial. I
> don't want to start a language war. These are just my opinions! I want to
> propose some topics for discussion but NO FLAMES PLEASE!
I purposely avoided getting involved in the scripting discussion until it calmed down a little bit. Now that it has, hopefully my voice will be heard.
Most of you know me as the QA guy, and although that is the visible role I serve, what I do best is ship product. I have shipped everything from Visual Data Analysis tools to browsers to remote Version Control Systems. I know what it takes to get product out the door, and I know how projects go astray. Given that: How does this scripting discussion help AbiWord get to version 1.0? In fact, I would postulate that it puts a speedy 1.0 in jeopardy if we were to start working on a scripting language now. Since we are trying to clamp new feature additions in anticipate of the 0.9 series of incremental releases driving to 1.0, something as large as scripting is not what should be under consideration. It's cool to talk about it, but from the "shipping product" point of view, it is little more than mental masturbation.
As the user advocate, I sometimes have to hide my true feelings. My favorite language is PERL, but that would never work as the AbiWord scripting language, because it would serve as a barrier to entry for many people. As an illustration, users want a Word Processor that has the ruler functionality they expect. Aaron's hard work in this area will go a long way to providing the type of shippable product users are happy to get. As a counter-example, nobody cares about .zabw files, vi mode, or Guile. These are features users do not care about, but developers do.
Ok, now that I got this out, let me ask again. How does this discussion help AbiWord get to version 1.0?
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