2009/7/17 William Stein <[email protected]>: > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 11:57 AM, Bill Hart<[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> As will have been observed, I've been thinking hard over the last few >> weeks as to how we can make MPIR contribution easier. In short it >> would be good to have more core developers. In particular I've been >> working on, or planning: >> >> * Set up a Git repo and encourage its use >> * Write developer documentation >> * Write an FAQ >> * Write an MPIR digest detailing development progress every three weeks >> * Write an MPIR most wanted list, of most needed contributions >> * Write a set of scripts or a program which makes adding new files to MPIR >> easy >> >> In this post I'll concentrate on the last of these which I've been >> looking into for a couple of days. >> >> The idea I had was to begin work on a cross platform windows program >> for MS Windows, OSX, KDE, etc, which would take the pain out of adding >> new files and modules to existing C maths libraries. > > That's possibly a really good idea. In Sage we similarly try to > provide a "framework/environment" to make it very easy for people to > get going doing development (without having to learn too many tedious > details). > >> With a little >> configuration it would essentially write all the boilerplate for the >> user, including stubs for test code, the function being added, and >> basically do all the configure and make stuff that needs to be done >> automatically. >> >> I decided to look into writing a basic programmer's editor, linked >> with Git, which would have this extra functionality of adding >> boilerplate code for new functions. The first step was to write a >> basic windows editor with C syntax highlighting and block folding. > > This sounds like a questionable idea to me. I suspect many developers > already have a favorite editor, and want to continue using it. > Strongly encouraging them switch from say Vi or Emacs or Eclipse to > BOE (Bill's Own Editor) to do MPIR development is not likely to fly. > > For example, I really *can't* do any serious code editing with any > program except X, and I've tried hard with many other IDE's and GUI > editors before, but *always* come back to X. (For me X=Emacs, and > for other people X=Vi or Eclipse or whatever.) > > You might want to consider focusing on the first program mentioned > above, and not on writing a code editor/IDE. >
Bill's own editor might only be useful for Bill. But unfortunately an editor of some kind is basically required for what I have in mind. Actually it is the same problem I am having right now. There are numerous GUI designers out there, but they can only go so far. You can basically design the look of your GUI, but none of the functionality, unless you integrate the GUI designer with the IDE. In my case, I want to design a library designer. Think of that like a GUI designer. You can get so far with the concept, then you need an IDE to take it to the next step. But basically what people would do is take things as far as they want to in Bill's own editor, then switch straight back to their ordinary C editor or IDE or whatever, to do the actual implementation within the stubs that have been created once they are done with Bills Own Editor. Of course I imagined that putting together a basic code editor with basic features like syntax highlighting and block folding, text search etc, would actually be quite easy. But so far, even doing that basic thing looks like about 3 months work. I obviously don't have that kind of time. So I'll probably give up and go back to the "first program" I described anyway. Bill. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mpir-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
