Sad Sigil news?

[theducks]

What I found hilarious was the one language I counted my self proficient in' Allows the user to shoot you in the foot'

My wife is famous for finding weakness in my frequently used code that existed for years without ever causing me any grief

[mrmikel]

If someone else wants to take over this project, the sensible thing is to start over in Python. It can be more easily maintained and it would be much easier to find code contributors.

The only problem is the million or so lines of code (not all of which would be needed in Python.)

The origin of Sigil was not to develop an epub editor per se, but a project through which the original developer could get his degree. In that regard, it was a great success, since graduated and got a job at Google. Expansion and maintainability were not the primary aims.

I wish I could help but my knowledge is in electronic hardware maintenance.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Did you ever consider a position in Management?

IT Management is my thing - or at least was until I was made redundant a couple of months ago. Now I'm looking for my next gig.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

If someone else wants to take over this project, the sensible thing is to start over in Python. It can be more easily maintained and it would be much easier to find code contributors.

I've been looking into the Python language. It looks like a nice language; superficially, it's seems to work bit like PHP, but without the curly braces. Many things can be done without bothering with details like memory management. It's not a difficult language.

The obvious disadvantage of Python compared to C++ is sheer speed, but then, a program such as Sigil does not need a lot of speed. However, if need be, there are possibilities to actually compile Python to an executable (py2exe, cx_Freeze), and if a function is needed that is *really* heavy on calculation, it could be written in C (or C++), compiled, and then called from Python.

I wish I could help but my knowledge is in electronic hardware maintenance.

I'm actually thinking about installing a Python development environment; Python 3.3, PyQT, and Eclipse/PyDev, and see if I can get a small GUI-program running just for the sake of it.

Mind you, I'm not saying I'm going to write the successor to Sigil. Maybe some day, but don't hold your breath. Still, I may look into Python further, because there are some (small) things I want to change/add in at least one Calibre plugin.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

If someone else wants to take over this project, the sensible thing is to start over in Python. It can be more easily maintained and it would be much easier to find code contributors.

Why do you think it can be more easily maintained? I would say that for big programs Python is harder to maintain than C++.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by tompe

Why do you think it can be more easily maintained? I would say that for big programs Python is harder to maintain than C++.

You're always going around posting that sort of statements without backing them up. Why do you think that Python code is harder to maintain than C++ code?

C++ is much harder to program in that Python (which seems a lot like PHP, with regard to programming ease), because much more stuff needs to be done by the programmer himself; this alone gives you MUCH more time to maintain a Python program.

Let me tell you, as a C / C++ programmer (who normally writes embedded software to make stuff run, such as microcontrollers, where no GUI's are used and speed/code compactness is paramount): I would NEVER use C or C++ for a desktop application nowadays, if I can get away with it.

I've been looking around. Many seem to "just" design the GUI in QT Designer, and call that from Python (using PyQT or PySide), rather than coding the GUI by hand, and then compile their speed-critical parts to external modules using Cython.

Cython basically takes Python (amended with some type information), translates it into C, and then compiles it into machine code.

That way, you have all the advantages: rapid GUI prototyping in a designer, rapid code writing in Python, and if you need speed, compilation of critical parts using Cython.

The best part is that most of the nitty-gritty details "under water" are taken care of for you, which makes code a lot easier to maintain, especially for newcomers to a project.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

You're always going around posting that sort of statements without backing them up. Why do you think that Python code is harder to maintain than C++ code?

C++ is much harder to program in that Python (which seems a lot like PHP, with regard to programming ease), because much more stuff needs to be done by the programmer himself; this alone gives you MUCH more time to maintain a Python program.

Let me tell you, as a C / C++ programmer (who normally writes embedded software to make stuff run, such as microcontrollers, where no GUI's are used and speed/code compactness is paramount): I would NEVER use C or C++ for a desktop application nowadays, if I can get away with it.

Well I program mostly in C++ and Python now (Perl before) and have used QT both in C++ and Python and I would also prefer Python if I was alone in the project. But if there are a lot of programmer in the project I would consider using C++ since it has better support for abstraction and it has static type checking.

But it depends a bit on the expected complexity and code size. If you get a small Python program that one person easily can develop than the smallness is such an advantage that this is preferred.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

You're always going around posting that sort of statements without backing them up.

What? I usually do not post that kind of statement at all.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by tompe

What? I usually do not post that kind of statement at all.

You often make assumptions of which you cannot be certain that they are true:

1. You assume someone with a full time job has unlimited time and money to spend on writing a book. People who have a day job hardly have unlimited time, and often not unlimited money either. Yeah, if you don't mind spending 20 years on writing that book, but that's hardly practical.
2. You assume everybody can just read text as close as they would like. There are many far-sighted people in this world who will need to keep their reading at a minimum distance, even using glasses.
You assume the books I bought were cheap because they were old conversions. They may be old conversions, but they are still the ones sold today. Except for Kobo Netherlands, these books are *not* cheap. They cost $12.99 / £8.49 everywhere else.

I'll drop it here, because this is not the point of the topic.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tompe

But it depends a bit on the expected complexity and code size. If you get a small Python program that one person easily can develop than the smallness is such an advantage that this is preferred.

Just a counterpoint, calibre is about 90% python, has half a million lines of code and ~100 code contributors, and is extremely well maintained, stable and evolves faster than the vast majority of software in the world.

http://www.ohloh.net/p/calibre

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Just a counterpoint, calibre is about 90% python, has half a million lines of code and ~100 code contributors, and is extremely well maintained, stable and evolves faster than the vast majority of software in the world.

http://www.ohloh.net/p/calibre

Oh, it is that many lines of code. I really like Python but it seems to me that you have to be a better programmer and more disciplined to write really good and maintainable code in Python. Or maybe I have not just found the right tools. I am still missing "use strict" from Perl.

[kovidgoyal]

For any large code base to be maintainable, the programmers involved have to be disciplined and experienced, regardless of the language. For example, my own style of python coding has evolved significantly over the decade or so that I have been writing python code.

I just find that python leads to much higher maintainability than C++. The advantage that static typing in C++ brings is easily compensated for by just using descriptive names in python.

However, I dont really want to get into a debate on the relative merits of various languages. If you are happy with C++ -- more power to you

[crutledge]

Can C++ communicate (send and receive) with Python?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by crutledge

Can C++ communicate (send and receive) with Python?

Sure, you can even host a python interpreter inside a C++ application and vice versa (run c++ code in a python application with a wrapper). I'd assume that would be the approach adding plugin functionality to Sigil would take.

[crutledge]

I have been browsing through the sigil code and see the major problem with sigil naintenance. NO PROPER DOCEMENTATION!!!

Unless the programmer thinks, eats, breathes, and dreams in C++, understanding what is going on is very difficult and not being totaly knowledgeable in the general functioning (epub operations) maintaining the code will be a huge learning curve.

Each modile should be accompanied by a pseudo code file defining and demonstrating the desired inputs, outputs, and data manipulation to be performed. The US military tried to overcome these problems with ADA, even then with limited success. Pseudo code is written to be understood by humans whereas code is written to be understood by machines.

IF the folks who have brought Ssigil to this point can be convinced to create this information, Sigil becomes eminently maintainable and can be easily expanded.