Re: [Libreoffice] web based libre office

Hi Ged,

        So - thank you for your nice ideas :-) we can setup a list for this
discussion: crack-smoking-re-write-everyhing-in-javascript@tdf.org or
somesuch ? :-)

On Mon, 2011-01-24 at 17:17 +0100, Ged Wed wrote:
> well you gotta start sometime and technology is on our side.

        Technology is never on the side of people who don't learn from the
past. It is already hard enough to re-write an application based on a
known good base, that has the API set you want because it makes very
little business or technical sense. Incremental re-factoring, makes lots
of sense - but cannot tolerate huge, disruptive technology change.

        The idea that we have to start sometime is not quite true ;-)

> Pretty easy solution and ready to go now.
> But it means that all the logic in Open Office is thrown away because
> we are talking directly to the file format.

        Right - we made something easier (using this toolkit for editing), and
accidentally introduced the need to re-write several millions of lines
of code in a duct-tape inspired, type-unsafe language :-)

> As i write this i realise that html is so powerful now that its better
> to just forget the past and do it all in html and JavaScript.

        Unfortunately, HTML is not sufficiently powerful that it writes the
code for you simply by reading your thoughts. Corel tried something at
least nominally achieveable - re-writing to use Java, and ... what
happened to that ? :-) Microsoft tried re-writing Office once in the
past which didn't turn out so well (they abandoned it after some huge
sunk cost).

> I know that this is controversial too and its a sever branch.

        Well - the good news is, that you can use OO.o for what you want now:
which sounds like file format conversion from <whatever> to the ODF that
your new javascript front-end will (no doubt) love to use.

        Sadly - I think you will find the first 50%+ of the task is easy - and
you'll get a demo working fast. Then you'll discover that things like
layout, and spreadsheet computation is hard - and give up :-) Indeed,
instead of doing the 50% yourself, why not take something that works
already - eg. 'dojo' and then 'just' add a layout feature - like WYSIWYG
footnotes to experience the fun :-)

        Either way - I don't think this discussion really belongs here - sorry.

        All the best,

                Michael.

-- 
 michael.meeks@novell.com  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot