On 09.09.2008 17:02:22 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> Jeremias Maerki wrote:
> > On 09.09.2008 13:01:54 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> <snip/>
> >>> /** [EMAIL PROTECTED] */
> >>> protected void renderBlockViewport(BlockViewport bv, List children) {
> >>> + //Essentially the same code as in the super class but optimized
> >>> for the IF
> >> More than 80% of the code of this method is completely identical to the
> >> overridden method. Surely there’s a way to optimize it and avoid that
> >> code duplication in the same time...
> >
> > I've spent a lot of time in implementations of renderBlockViewport in
> > the past. I've been able to make small improvements over time but I've
> > never found a solution that fits all output formats so far. Without any
> > major refactoring of the code anyway, which is basically what I'm doing
> > in the branch right now.
> >
> >> I can’t think of any good reason for copy-pasting code. That
> >> artificially increases the size of the codebase, that makes the code
> >> more difficult to understand and much more tricky to maintain. As soon
> >> as a change is made somewhere, you’re almost sure that at least one
> >> duplicated part will be forgotten somewhere.
> >
> > Don't you think I know that copy/paste programming is bad?
>
> That’s precisely why I don’t understand why there’s so much of that to
> be found in the current code. Performance is not an argument if you ask
> me. We’re not developing a software that will run on a micro-controller,
> with a 68000 processor and where memory is counted in Kb instead of Gb.
> The complexity of the topic makes it much more important to have
> a codebase that is clean and conceptually simple. Anyway, there’s IMO
> much more to achieve in terms of performance by working on the software
> architecture rather than replacing a few method calls, early exiting
> a loop, or whatever.
>
I think I'm missing something. Who brought up performance as an argument?
BTW, "XSL-FO" and "conceptually simple" are mutually exclusive. ;-)
> >> There is already way too much code duplication in the present codebase.
> >> Let’s avoid introducing even more duplication in new commits, shall we?
> >
> > I'm trying all the time. Please note: the branch is work in progress and
> > once it's done many renderer implementations will get deprecated to
> > lighten the maintainance burden. Eventually they'll get removed and the
> > copy/paste problem goes away.
>
> Then where is the TODO comment explaining exactly that? That would have
> saved me the time to write this message, and saved you the time to
> answer it. I can’t read in your mind...
The wiki page implies that this will happen. It makes no sense to keep
two parallel implementations for each output format. So I guess I relied
on common sense. I'll add a TODO on the Wiki.
Jeremias Maerki
