Programming language for development

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by HarryT

All my books are created via the same route: BD -> HTML -> Mobi Creator -> Calibre.

I always use BD, with the output in lrf format. I was wondering what is the best way to produce ePub. Your method looks just what I am looking for... Could you please explain?

[radius]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The Edit metadata window goes away slowly because after you edit metadata, calibre has to move the book files to a new location.

Sorting will become faster after the database refactoring.

Seeing the windows drawing is definitely not normal, even on my 6+ year old laptop that doesn't happen.

Adding books has a floor time because it takes place in a separate process. This is for robustness as sometimes metadata reading libraries written in C can cause segfaults which would take down all of calibre.

OK, I am willing to believe that it is IPC and platform issues that make Calibre feel slow to me, and not being implemented in Python.

But as an aside, it doesn't matter to me as a user where delays are coming from, only that they exist. I'm running on a 1.2GHz Core2 which isn't a super speedy machine, but is still respectable.

(Re: editing metadata and importing books, have you considered putting the lengthy operations in a worker thread so that the UI control returns to the user right away?)

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by radius

(Re: editing metadata and importing books, have you considered putting the lengthy operations in a worker thread so that the UI control returns to the user right away?)

It's a little hairy in this case, as you would have to deal with concurrent processes modifying the database.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Rigth now I haven't decided what problems to address, but as they will be in the same line as utilities and programs found here in MR, I wanted to know the opinion of the experts.

Ah okay from that standpoint... the two most utilized languages for manipulating ebooks here are Perl and Python. If you are looking for a task that is sourly needed is to create IMP format form calibre.
While calibre does not have a plugin architecture it is compartmentalize by design and you could create an HTML -> IMP solution in a vacuum then integrate it to the main line with little effort.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It's a little hairy in this case, as you would have to deal with concurrent processes modifying the database.

It does add more complexity but not by much. Adding a simple semaphore to block any writes and allow reads is not very complicated. Minimal compared to the boost in user experience.

Reading/Writting to databases only gets complicated when you have a host of clients that read/write to the same database.

=X=

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by =X=

Ah okay from that standpoint... the two most utilized languages for manipulating ebooks here are Perl and Python. If you are looking for a task that is sourly needed is to create IMP format form calibre.
While calibre does not have a plugin architecture it is compartmentalize by design and you could create an HTML -> IMP solution in a vacuum then integrate it to the main line with little effort.

Actually calibre does have a plugin architecture and it is perfectly possible to develop an IMP output plugin.