Clay Leeds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb am 19.05.2004 01:03:19: > It would be interesting to compare some RenderX example output between > the two^H^H^H three (ArndFO, fop-0.20.5, fop-1.0Dev)... I suspect there > may be other significant differences as well, with performance, heap, etc.
Be warned that the RenderX testsuite files require a relatively high degree of spec compliance. Shorthands are used everywhere, all table examples require auto-layout, and so on. I confess that I learned a few more things about FO when testing with these files... > Then again, the more I think about it, the more it seems like Peter's > train-of-thought RE: FOP development destabilization. 'We' could be > working on FOP development, but instead we're talking about Arnd's (and > Victor's) development efforts (I have every reason to believe it is > everything he says it is), and discussing how the grass may be greener > on the other side of the fence. That's true. So let's all get back to work. 8-) >From Peter's mail: > The thing that immediately strikes me about Arnd's development is that > it seems to blow away the theory that incremental modification of an > existing code base is always the better way to go. IIUC, Arnd wrote a > formatter from scratch (except for some fo the font handling) in two years. I don't think what I did proves your point. Even though it worked for me this time, it was a high risk (ok, since I was always prepared to treat this a fun project, no risk). It was really a gamble, one I wouldn't have done under other circumstances - for example not if producing an FO formatter had been our business then. I suppose when you look around, you will find much, much more failed "rewrite" projects than failed "incremental" projects. In any case, I really don't think you can compare a one-person effort to that of a distributed group. Also, I believe this is rather a generic software-development question. If you think you do see the light at the end of the tunnel for the FOP rewrite then by all means go for it. There's one thing I want to mention at this point: The market (make that "community" if you prefer) for FO formatting is still very small. Growing, but still very small. The more different solutions that we see, the better for the market or community (yes, only to a certain extent of course). I am sure, even within the open source community, many users would be grateful not to be "locked" into using FOP, but to have an alternative. My 2 cents, but now finally back to work. Arnd -- Arnd Beißner Cappelino Informationstechnologie GmbH
