Re: LYNX-DEV Re: Setting up a fund for specific development?

[David Combs]

> From address@hidden Tue Jan  6 09:31:50 1998
> Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 11:52:49 -0500 (EST)
> From: Andrew Kuchling <address@hidden>
> 
>       The HTML parser presents problems because its use of global
> variables prevents recursive parsing, which is required for tables,
> and because it's a one-pass parser.  As an initial step, you'd have to
> push all these globals into a C struct, and then modify a lot of
> functions to receive such a struct as a parameter.  (Or, do some hack
> which saves and restores all the relevant globals from a stack.)
> Then, tables really require several passes, to gauge the size of the
> cells, render them offscreen somehow, and then size the table
> accordingly, so Lynx's HTML parsing will really need a serious
> overhaul.  That's a lot of work, which no one has done, and no one
> seems really willing to do.
> 
>       See the thread "Centering <PRE> text" at


Look, we are ALL going to be learning Java within a year
or two -- that is, if we want to stay employed.

It truly is a VASTLY better language than C++, or C,
what with its garbage collection (totally automatic),
strong typing, classes, pseudo multiple-inheritance "almost"
but "good enough" and FAR simpler, "beans" for plug-in
software, (for super-simiple add-ons), etc.

This java is NOT just some "show fancy bouncing balls
on html pages" language; it is a REAL LANGUAGE, and will, I hear
from lots of people who know, soon supersede C++ (because
projects can get done in anywheres from three to ten times
as fast, that is until "release").

Stuff is being added every day; IBM has evidently almost
staked its future on it (more so than Sun), etc.

That Pizza superset
<LI><a href="http://wwwipd.ira.uka.de/~pizza/";>Welcome to the Pizza site! 
(superset of java)</a>

I mentioned has closures, nifty way of doing C++ templates (but easier
and better, it seems), etc, probably more new features than I 
noticed the last time I looked at it.

It seems that only by going to java can we simplify the code,
and break it up, so that LOTS of us can hack on it individually;
enables us to keep our work separate and non-interfering until
it is accepted and merged in.