Re: [Libreoffice] web based libre office

On 1/24/11 5:53 PM, Michael Meeks wrote:
> 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.
I wouldn't mind spear heading an effort to do a python port of LO in 
regards to going web based. Cant you integrate the C++ code we have with 
python?