Re: [aspell-devel] Port to Win32

[Gary Setter]

<snip>
> > I only have VC6.0 and Borlands BCB5.5. So that is what I'm
> > porting to.
>
> CygWin and MinGW use Gcc and available for free.  Do a Google
search.
I didn't say I could not have them, I said that I did not have
them. What I have suits me fine.

> > I've tried to express why I believe the ported code is better
> > code. Why do you believe that it is not?
>
> Because the changes to get Aspell to compile with VC are
generally ugly.

Sometimes, sometimes not.
Take this line from convert.hpp
  class Convert {
  private:
    static const size_t memory_size = 96;
};
I believe it is none standard to initialize member data in a
class definition.
The alternative is using an enum. Not ugly at all.

  enum {memory_size = 96};

When you say ugly, do you mean that comprehending the code is
more difficult? Sometimes that does happen. But sometimes that is
inevitable. Consider the PathBrowser class. It is based on the OS
dependent functions readdir, closedir. Making this work for Win32
is a little 'ugly'.

What is the alternative? What is happening now is the same things
have to be changed to port the code with each release. That seems
kind of ugly to me.

This kind of reminds me of what happens when Europeans get
together. Each would be most comfortable conversing in their own
language, but to get along they choose a language that the whole
group understands. A little uncomfortable for individuals but
better for the whole.

I look forward to your response.
Gary Setter