Future of NEdit?

[Tim Hubberstey]

On 2008-01-02 14:59, Thorsten Haude wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> * Tim Hubberstey wrote (2007-11-27 02:20):
>> Or, is it possible to emulate Motif with wrappers making calls to the 
>> toolkit(s) of choice? Speed of execution is no longer an issue given 
>> today's processor speeds.
> 
> You suggest that we write an Adapter which speaks Motif at our end and
> eg. Qt at the other? Nice idea. Certainly worth to consider, though I
> wouldn't be surprised if it would end up being more difficult than
> switching altogether.

It is definitely more work, but there are a few things that make it 
attractive:

1. Writing code like this is much easier for a non-NEdit developer 
because intimate knowledge of NEdit and its history is not required. I 
assume that a job like this will partition nicely into small modules -- 
encouraging people who don't have a lot of spare time to contribute to 
the project.

2. We may re-kindle interest in other open-source projects that use 
Motif (if there are any)

3. It allows you to phase-in the conversion to the desired toolkit since 
it is inherently a top-down process. This makes debugging much simpler 
than trying to convert the whole program at once.

4. It may be desirable to keep NEdit as a Motif application and use a 
conversion toolkit as a permanent solution. Advantages:
   a. You always have a rock solid platform available for debugging 
(e.g. NEdit on Solaris).
   b. You can change to a different toolkit, or choose to support more 
than one toolkit (native Win32 perhaps?), without having to modify the 
application.

Tim
-- 
Tim Hubberstey, P.Eng. . . . . . Hardware/Software Consulting Engineer
Marmot Engineering . . . . . . .  VHDL, ASICs, FPGAs, embedded systems
Vancouver, BC, Canada  . . . . . . . . . . . http://www.marmot-eng.com