Subject: Re: Scripting with Visual Basic Clone
From: Big Ed (dysan_2000@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 29 2000 - 16:09:33 CDT
>From: Tomasz Wegrzanowski <maniek@beer.com>
>To: Big Ed <dysan_2000@hotmail.com>
>CC: abiword-dev@abisource.com
>Subject: Re: Scripting with Visual Basic Clone
>Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:56:31 +0200
>
>On Thu, Jun 29, 2000 at 12:10:19PM -0500, Big Ed wrote:
> > Options thus far?
> > (NOTE: 'Scripter' refers to your avg. windows Office hacker)
> >
> > *Perl - Great string parsing, not overly powerful with math (I've had
> > problems in the past with this)
>
>Problems with Perl ?
>There are perl libs for *everything*, just visit CPAN.
>What was your particular problem ?
Was doing some exponetial calculations a while back for some project (There
have been WAY too many since then...), and I wasn't getting the kind of
speed I'd get writing in C. I agree that there are TONS of packages out
there for perl, which is why I still write quite a few web apps in it, but
speed AND flexibility should be a top-line priority for Abiword since one of
the big Touts of Linux is running on old, slow equipment. X may take a
while to load on a 486 with 32Meg, but it'd be REALLY nice to be able to run
a fully featured WP in it as quick as Word 3/4 ran on a 286.
> > *Homemade scripting language - Viable? Possibly. But you're looking at
>a
> > rather healthy development time doing such. Even then, would you be
> > reinventing the wheel in the process?
> ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^
>Not necesarily re-inventing.
>As you see there is no such language yet,
>so we might end making great thing.
>If writing spec takes more than an hour this language is too complex.
>Plugin for guile shouldn't take too much for such a simple
>language.
Well.. I guess I didn't make myself clear on that statement as I don't know
myself if a similar project already exists.
> > *VB clone - has the benefit of thousands already knowing it, yet
>security
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > problems are readily appearant.
>
>Is this for real or for marketing ?
For real.. I'm not a marketeer, so please don't put me in that category.
I've worked far too long in the trenches for that label to ever be applied.
>Almost 100% MSWord users don't script. The only ones I know who do
>are those who know some other programming except VB.
I know a LARGE number of VB scripters out there. Around here, about one out
of every 4 web designers knows and uses it. Granted they make up a small
portion of Office users, but that's why I said thousands rather than
tens-of-thousands.
>Consider also :
>* smalltalk
>really easy and very OO, but little known
Heard of it. I know one guy that does any smalltalk coding..
>* 100%-imperative special language
>as one used in corewars
>you simply run script externally, and open 2 fifos,
>one abi->script second script->abi
>internally script can be done in any language,
>as long as it can print and get.
>* some xml-specific language
Heck, even Rebol might be able to do some of this. Lord knows any language
you can write a web server in like 12 lines has GOT to have some value.
I'm not saying any one is better than the other. I know a custom solution
has to have some sort of lexical analyzer/parser, which is something I've
never done before. (never made it to compilers before getting a job) I
dunno if it's really easy now with bison, lex, etc. but I wouldn't suggest
it without knowing the realities of coding.
But if a custom solution is what seems to be more popular, who would care to
start the process of design? This is something I'd really like to see
implemented.
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