From: Tomas Frydrych (tomas@frydrych.uklinux.net)
Date: Thu May 09 2002 - 16:17:05 EDT
Hi Paul,
>   Switch the default HEAD build environment to BIDI_ENABLED
> That way if no serious problems surface after a week or so, then
> deleting the deprecated code shouldn't worry anyone (least of all me).
We could, of course, do this, though I personally do not see much 
need for it. If you look into the sources, you will see that most of 
the #if's look something like this:
#ifdef BIDI_ENABLED
    if(LTR)
#endif
    {
        ... some code
    }
#ifdef BIDI_ENABLED
    else
   {
       ... bidi specific code
   }
#endif
I have took this ugly approach so that the bidi build would 
physically share as much of the non-bidi code as possible. There 
are very few cases where differences where so substantial that the 
defines look like this:
#ifndef BIDI_ENABLED
    ... some non-bidi code
#else
    ... the bidi only code
#endif
Consequently, we will be deleting very little code, mainly just 
getting rid off the #if's. At the end of the day, we will have to fix the 
bugs one way or another.
The other thing is, that with the rewrite Martin has started I suspect 
we will not have a properly working code in the HEAD for some 
time -- my understanding was that this was precisely the reason for 
the 1.0 release, so that we could do radical things to the head. 
Consequently, I doubt we would get any substantial feedback (from 
truning the bidi stuff on by default) in a week or two. I think leaving 
the #ifdef's in will mainly just complicate the rewrite -- the new 
container system needs to be designed with bidi in mind, at least 
to the extent that each container needs to be able to order its 
contents in left-to-right or right-to-left order, and I would hate for this 
to be done with new #ifdef BIDI_ENABLED blocks.
As far as the Pango work is concerned, this does not make it any 
harder or easier, it just makes the sources clearer, particularly as 
there is now going to be a new set of #ifdef WITH_PANGO 
sections. In terms of progress, I have hardly started and doubt 
there will be anything to show for it in the next month or two.
Tomas
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