On Sun, 13 Dec 1998, Asger Alstrup Nielsen wrote:
> The main remaining problems with the so far best candiate language, Python,
> are:
> 1) It's not bundable.
> 2) It's not clear how the security concern could be solved. (And this prevents
> us from using the external approach.)
Have you looked at Grail (an all Python web browser) they allow running of
Python scripts in a secure mode (which is provided by the Python
interpreter).
> 3) It's still a bit unclear how easy it is to link it. (Although the vim people
> seem to have a solution.)
>
> These problems go very much against adopting Python as the "official" scripting
> language. (At least it seems that everybody agree that we should have an
> "official" scripting language.)
>
> The other serious candidate scripting language so far is Scheme.
> And the only known disadvantage of this is that some feel that it's not
> appropriate for beginners. This feeling is based on syntax, and the fact that
> Scheme is not an imperative language.
>
> Therefor I propose that we do this:
>
> Make Scheme the primary candidate language, in the form of a very small and
> thus bundable scheme, like SIOD. So we would declare Scheme the "official"
> scripting language, that all LyX come with.
Okay I could go along with this. (Although I like the looks of Python and
would have voted for it).
> Then, next to this, we have a language that is designed to be simple and easy
> for beginners. Specifically it will be a language with a syntax which is
> designed to be as "natural" as possible. Also, it will be a imperative
> language, because this is the most natural thing for a power user: A list of
> commands that are executed after each other, just like the commands would
> appear when they are recorded by LyX.
[...]
> And now we turn to the main idea for realizing this proposal: This simple,
> "natural", imperative scripting language would be implemented in Scheme, and
> thus bundled. And furthermore: It would be feasible to do this. It's a piece
> of cake to write an interpreter in Scheme.
Why not just write a library of defuns (?) thus avoiding multiple
interpretations of scripts and gently easing beginners into the
scheme/functional programming model.
[...]
> > - we should choice as our official scripting language one that is simple
> > and that can be included in lyx so users don't have to install a bunch
> > of libraries.
agreed.
[...]
> The security aspect of the simple language is as simple as saying whether the
> "eval-scheme" function is allowed or not.
> For the Scheme language, we need a bit more work, but this is needed for any
> scripting language.
Does the siod implementation have a secure mode built into the
interpreter like Python does?
> So what do you think? Should I download SIOD and try to embed it into 1.1?
Yes, why not. (I'm surprized you haven't already :)
Once you've got that working JMarc could then start on this idea for
fully scripted layout files. That would indeed lead to some interesting
capabilities for LyX (not least of which is a better match to the LaTeX
output for section numbering or naming eg. Appendix vs. Appendices)
Allan. (ARRae)
Who having now read almost all the 350 emails that gathered while he was
away has very limited time for contributing anything and will be away for
another two weeks shortly during which he hopes to complete the GUI
independence work and lay the foundations for KDE/Qt/Gnome/Gtk--/GNUStep/NT
and OS/2 or Mac native ports.
