[wxPython-dev] 2.8.7.0 coming soon

[Kevin Ollivier]

Hi Cody,

On Nov 20, 2007, at 12:24 AM, Cody Precord wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On Nov 20, 2007, at 12:07 AM, Kevin Ollivier wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Bill Baxter wrote:
>>>> Ooh, Editra does look interesting.  Could it be the python-based  
>>>> emacs
>>>> replacement everyone has been looking for?
>>>
>>> Does it support multiple Frames???
>>
>> Try it out and see! You can get it from http://www.editra.org if  
>> you don't want to get it from the latest wxPython pre-release.
>>
>> Anyway, I can't speak for Cody regarding Editra so I hope he'll  
>> correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding of the project I  
>> don't think Editra currently aims to be a Python-based emacs  
>> replacement, or at least not one that can do all the things Robin  
>> needs to ween him off the "old" emacs. ;-) From what I understand,  
>> Emacs is as much a framework to write text editors in as it is a  
>> text editor, so IMHO it probably makes sense to have a project  
>> focused just on replicating those capabilities in wxPython. Editra  
>> and Peppy actually do share code, too, so I don't feel it's really  
>> a 're-invent the wheel' scenario here. Just making two different  
>> wheels for two different target groups.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Kevin
>
> It would indeed be a surprise to me if it was to be an Emacs  
> replacement as I have honestly spent less than an hour in my entire  
> life using Emacs. I have however received a number of emails from  
> people saying they are glad to have found it to use it as a means to  
> replace Emacs in their daily lives.
>
> Editra at its core is only meant to be a text editor that  
> specializes in editing code nothing more nothing less, or as they  
> say in the Unix world do one thing and do it well. Changing this for  
> those that need more is what the plugin framework is there for, with  
> plugins it can easily be transformed in to a "do more than just edit  
> text" program.
>
> As mentioned peppy already does use a fairly substantial amount of  
> code from Editra so it isn't so much a 're-invent the wheel'  
> scenario. On a side note however I have never understood why so many  
> people cast re-inventing the wheel in negative terms, things have  
> been done, redone, thrown away, reborn and built upon in all aspects  
> of technology throughout the ages, this is how progress is made and  
> new ideas are born. There is a certain level of efficiency that can  
> be gained from reusing the same wheel over and over again but if  
> efficiency in that area is/was the only goal we would likely still  
> be rolling around in vehicles with stone or wooden wheels ;)

As the saying goes, everything in moderation. ;-) There's just too  
many duplicate efforts going on in open source, and most of them are  
not for very good reasons. (i.e. many of them don't even explore  
existing approaches to learn from them) It leads to a glut in  
programs, most of which aren't really that different from one another  
and are re-writing basic things like highlighting code, and as the  
number of projects grows, it becomes obvious that they could benefit  
from consolidation because you start to see that most of them have  
fairly simple/obvious bugs in core code. The end result is, and I've  
done this myself a few times, that people go around downloading a  
bunch of programs, and find that about 1/3 won't run, 1/3 just aren't  
far enough along to be useful, and the last third are mired in bugs.  
That leaves zero viable options, and so I go back to my commercial/ 
freeware editor.

This actually hurts projects like wxPython, though, because we can  
never get a large enough community together to produce even one good  
editor that competes with alternatives provided by the native  
toolkits. Sadly, the conclusion I think many new users will draw from  
that fact is that wxPython is incapable of producing something as good  
as the alternatives. That's why I'm hoping that bundling and promoting  
some of the better tools out there will encourage people to build upon  
those tools rather than start from scratch (again).

Regards,

Kevin

> Regards,
>
> Cody Precord
>
>
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