After CDE was open sourced, dtinfo didn't build. I decided to spend a
summer rewriting it in HTML. I still have nightmares about it.
On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 9:21 PM Matthew R. Trower <d...@blackshard.net> wrote:
> Oh! Okay, so when I said I came up dry, I meant "nothing but a static
> analysis company". I thought there was probably trade terminology at the
> heart of this that I was unfamiliar with... Guess it was just the company
> after all =)
>
> I'll have to go check that out!
>
> -mrt
> Original Message
> From: Jon Trulson
> Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 20:17
> To: cdesktopenv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [cdesktopenv-devel] Docbook
>
> Yes. It's a static code analysis tool. Current stats are:
>
> 3851 total defects, 1831 outstanding, 38 dismissed, 1982 fixed.
>
> So you can see another reason why I shudder at some of the modules in
> CDE :) Some of the things I've seen...
>
> If you have a (free) account there, or a github account, you can go here:
>
> https://scan.coverity.com/projects/common-desktop-environment
>
> Login, and hit the "Add me to project" button to see the defects, and
> maybe, fix a few dozen of them for kicks :)
>
> -jon
>
> On 08/01/2018 07:03 PM, Chase via cdesktopenv-devel wrote:
> > I believe he is referring to this online linter:
> https://scan.coverity.com/
> >
> >
> > Thank you for your time,
> > -Chase
> >
> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > On August 1, 2018 7:56 PM, Matthew R. Trower <d...@blackshard.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Yeah, I can respect everything you said here, and more or less agree.
> >>
> >> By the way, what is "coverity"? Is it related to "coverage"? I tried to
> look up a definition some time back and came up dry.
> >>
> >> -mrt
> >> Original Message
> >> From: Jon Trulson
> >> Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 12:09
> >> To: Matthew R. Trower
> >> Cc: Marcin Cieslak; cdesktopenv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> >> Subject: Re: [cdesktopenv-devel] Docbook
> >>
> >> On 07/31/2018 08:47 PM, Matthew R. Trower wrote:
> >>
> >>> Jon Trulson j...@radscan.com writes:
> >>>
> >>>> On 07/31/2018 07:53 PM, Matthew R. Trower wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Jon Trulson j...@radscan.com writes:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Not a clue. I think ultimately we would want it to generate HTML and
> >>>>>> just use a web browser for both help and the guides.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'd really hate to see that.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> - DtInfo is part of CDE.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> - DtInfo (like all of CDE) is very lightweight.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> - DtInfo provides index and search capabilities (this is a primary
> >>>>> strength of DocBook). Doesn't that sort of go out the window with
> >>>>> HTML?
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Well, converting to docbook XML (not html) should preserve all of that
> >>>> functionality actually. With that, we could generate HTML if we
> >>>> wanted, or PDF's of the guides, or a variety of other formats. But I
> >>>> don't know what the cde-specific software like dthelp and dtinfo are
> >>>> actually doing.
> >>>> There's the format and manipulation of the documentation itself - this
> >>>> is what I'm talking about.
> >>>
> >>> Sure, I'm with you so far (on DocBook XML). But you mentioned
> >>> generating HTML and just using a web browser. Are you suggesting that
> >>> we throw out DtInfo and friends and use a web browser (e.g. Firefox,
> >>> Dillo) instead? Or simply that we could generate additional formats
> >>> (e.g. HTML) for convenience? Or, are you suggesting that an HTML
> >>> renderer be embedded into DtInfo?
> >>> I see below that you probably don't want to throw it out, so I guess I
> >>> misunderstood you here (on HTML and browsers). What did you mean?
> >>
> >> No, I don't want to throw it out, though in the end, we may want to
> >> alter how it works internally - say using some sort of html widget for
> >> display and navigation rather than the custom parser/renderer that
> >> appears to be present now.
> >>
> >> But again, I do not know enough about how the internals work to do
> >> anything other than speculate at this time.
> >>
> >>>> I'm not sure what you mean by out-of-tree technology. I do not think
> >>>> trying to maintain ancient copies of code (nsgmls, et. al) is a viable
> >>>> solution. No one maintains it.
> >>>
> >>> Well, I guess I just don't think the situation is so dire. We're here
> >>> in 2018, and it's still chugging along. I don't see any tickets about
> >>> it. Is it broken?
> >>> I'm not really suggesting that the ideal route is to keep our in-tree
> >>> toolchain forever, though. The statement about in-tree, out-of-tree,
> >>> modern, etc came about as a result of general feelings about the tech
> >>> industry's push for newer and shinier, even at the cost of (in my eyes)
> >>> quality. I feel especially keenly about it in heritage projects like
> >>> this. I think that balance is important, and am conservative about
> >>> ripping out existing tech in favor of new. I'm having a hard time
> >>> putting my full thoughts on this to digital paper right now, and it's
> >>> probably not worth it as I think I may have misunderstood you.
> >>> Also, I suspect you've learned a thing or two in your career about
> >>> bit-rot and maintainership that I should probably defer to. =)
> >>
> >> My issue is in duplicating existing software with older, unmaintained
> >> versions. I don't like that. It's extra maintenance and a source of
> >> potential trouble (security issues, coverity issues, even compiler
> >> warning issues.)
> >>
> >> Time and development resources for working on CDE are restricted -
> >> therefore the less we have to worry about, the better off we will be in
> >> terms of being able to deliver something usable in a modern environment
> >> with the resources we have...
> >>
> >> Also, I don't think the future of CDE is in keeping things exactly as
> >> they are -- the world has moved on from some of the technologies that
> >> were brand new when CDE was under active development. I don't think it
> >> is reasonable, or feasible to keep everything exactly as it was in 1995.
> >>
> >> So, no I don't want to remove dtinfo and dthelp, but updating them to
> >> something based on modern standards and practices is not a bad goal
> >> either. Hell, some of this stuff was developed before the Internet was
> >> even a thing. And some of the code is really bad. Preserving and
> >> maintaining that is not long term a goal, it can't be.
> >>
> >>>> I do suggest we offload the utilities portion (like osgmls) to OS
> >>>> versions and not keep bit-rotting versions in our tree.
> >>>
> >>> I don't have a problem with using system opensp. I don't see that
> >>> affecting anybody, really, so I'm happy to reduce our code footprint.
> >>>
> >>>> I am also for converting the current older SGML document formats to
> >>>> XML and docbook 5. As to how that affects dthelp/dtinfo, I just don't
> >>>> know at this time.
> >>>
> >>> Thats probably reasonable enough, if not pressing (not that you
> >>> suggested it was). I'm curious about SGML (a scheme dialect? I'm with
> >>> the editor (esr?) on this one), but it seems the DocBook community
> >>> prefers XML (considered lightweight in this context? Oh my). In
> >>> addition to the newer tooling, it might make onboarding easier for
> >>> revising / adding documentation to the project. Honestly, I suspect XML
> >>> probably is more reasonable for documentation anyway.
> >>
> >> Yes, there's a lot to learn here. That's another problem - trying to
> >> maintain something you don't really understand :)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Jon Trulson
> >>
> >> "Fire all weapons and open a hailing frequency for my victory yodle."
> >>
> >> - Zapp Brannigan
> >>
> >> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
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> >>
> >> cdesktopenv-devel mailing list
> >> cdesktopenv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cdesktopenv-devel
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
> --
> Jon Trulson
>
> "Fire all weapons and open a hailing frequency for my victory yodle."
>
> - Zapp Brannigan
>
>
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