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TAKAHASHI Naoto | 4 Mar 14:42

Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

Nadim Shaikli writes:

> Greetings, now that emacs-bidi has been around for over 6-months
> in its current very functional state, what can be said about its
> future and its possible inclusion into emacs' CVS tree ?

The current version never goes into the main tree.  Actually, it uses
algorithms that have already been rejected to be included.

>  1. Post a reference on gnu.emacs.sources
>  2. Ask for beta testers on gnu.emacs.help

Advertising the current version is greatly welcome.

>  3. Get the author to present a polished version of his changes to RMS
>     - they will then to go the Emacs Devel list, and be debated there

A "pollished" version will not do; a drastic change is required.

> Could someone with a bit more visibility into what's taking shape
> within emacs let us know how best to proceed to make emacs-bidi an
> included native functionality within emacs proper ?

If someone writes better code for bidi, it may be included in the
'official' GNU Emacs.  The problem is, none of the programmers who can do
it has time to do it.  If you know a capable programmer, please ask
him/her to give us a hand.

--

-- 
TAKAHASHI Naoto
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TAKAHASHI Naoto | 5 Mar 06:26

Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

Sorry for my obscure statement in the last email.

Nadim Shaikli writes:

>> The current version never goes into the main tree.  Actually, it uses
>> algorithms that have already been rejected to be included.

> Any further details ?  Are there competing algorithms out there
> that are deemed "acceptable" ?

Eli Zaretskii, one of the most important Emacs developers, is writing
such a code.  I heard he has done to some extent and his code is
expected to be included in the main trunk once finished.

>> Advertising the current version is greatly welcome.

> I'm a bit confused.  If the algorithm has been rejected and passed
> over what's the plan then ?  Advertising the current code will
> certainly get testers (or we all hope so), but then what ?

First of all, we need to learn what kinds of functionalities people
want to have and what kind of user interface is preferable.  On the
other hand, the algorithm (namely, how they are implemented) does not
concern ordinary users; only Emacs developers care about it.

>> A "pollished" version will not do; a drastic change is required.

> Could you please elaborate on the "change".

Developers feel that the current emacs-bidi is not efficient enough.
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Kenichi Handa | 5 Mar 08:15

Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

In article <200303050526.h255Qhv03588 <at> mule.m17n.org>, TAKAHASHI Naoto <ntakahas <at> m17n.org> writes:
>>  Has RMS or the emacs developers given a clear statement on what it
>>  is that they'd like to see or not (URL) ?  Is there a means for us
>>  to elevate Bidi's inclusion on their list of things to do ?

Please visit this page:
    http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/
and search string "bidi".  Then, you'll find, for instance,
this page:
    http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2001-07/msg00042.html

You'll see the flow of discussions by reading previous or
next mails on the same thread.

> Don't worry.  The core developers are aware of the necessity of bidi.
> All we need is a programmer who
>   1. knows Emacs' display engine, and
>   2. is familiar with bidi concepts, and
>   3. has time to write a code.

> Yes, there are a few men who satisfy 1. and 2. above, but they are all
> busy.  (You know how such people are rare and precious.)  If you
> really want bidi support right now, you need to hire them.  Otherwise,
> you need to wait for their voluntary work or do it yourself.

If I can get a budget of, at least, 40,000 USD, I can
persuade our boss that I spend my time on it as a side job.
:-)

---
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TAKAHASHI Naoto | 5 Mar 13:50

Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

Thank you for the explanation, Alex.  I made a link from the
emacs-bidi web page to the DisplayEngineForBidi section in the Emacs
Wiki site.

--

-- 
TAKAHASHI Naoto
ntakahas <at> m17n.org
http://www.m17n.org/ntakahas/
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TAKAHASHI Naoto | 6 Mar 03:55

Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

Thank you for your explanation, Eli.

"Eli Zaretskii" writes:

>> > Has RMS or the emacs developers given a clear statement on what it
>> > is that they'd like to see or not (URL) ?  Is there a means for us
>> > to elevate Bidi's inclusion on their list of things to do ?
>> 
>> I do not think any URL is available for now.  If someone writes a
>> summary, I can put it one the emacs-bidi web page.

> I wrote such summaries a few times in the past, see the archives.

Oh, yes, of course ML archives are available.  I was thinking of a web
page specially designed to explain "why is Emacs bidi-illiterate?"

> P.S.  Btw, I didn't see the original messages from Nadim Shaikli, and
> neither did I see the message from Alex to which you replied in
> another mail.  These messages are also not in the emacs-bidi archives.
> Does someone know what happened with them?  Did they bounce off the
> list or something?

Strange.  Does the emacs-bidi list reject posts from non-members?  Are
Nadim and Alex on the list?

--

-- 
TAKAHASHI Naoto
ntakahas <at> m17n.org
http://www.m17n.org/ntakahas/
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Alex Schroeder | 5 Mar 10:45
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Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

TAKAHASHI Naoto <ntakahas <at> m17n.org> writes:

> I do not think any URL is available for now.  If someone writes a
> summary, I can put it one the emacs-bidi web page.

At the time the problem was this:  The display engine moves through
the buffer character by character and decides how to display it.  This
is the current architecture, and the display engine is a very delicate
piece of work, so this is not going to change unless somebody rewrites
alot of code.

Therefore, we cannot use existing bidi algorithms, because these
expect a string instead of a stream of characters.  Using a string,
one could implement the Unicode or a similar reordering algorithm
which returned a "visual order" string to display.  But this
straightforward route is not acceptable if we want to integrate bidi
at the display engine level.

We need a piece of code that hooks into the display engine and that
can return the next character to display, given a position in a
buffer.  (The important part here is that this will probably not be
the character at that position when bidi reordering is in effect.)
This will require looking ahead, looking behind, applying algorithms,
and caching the result, so that when the display engine moves to the
next position in the buffer and wants to know what character to
display, less work is required.

Anyway, that's the basic problem description.

It seems that Eli has a stand-alone solution of this piece of code and
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Eli Zaretskii | 5 Mar 18:42
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Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

> Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 16:15:06 +0900 (JST)
> From: Kenichi Handa <handa <at> m17n.org>
> 
> Please visit this page:
>     http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/
> and search string "bidi".  Then, you'll find, for instance,
> this page:
>     http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2001-07/msg00042.html
> 
> You'll see the flow of discussions by reading previous or
> next mails on the same thread.

Thank you for this pointer, Handa-san.  Yes, this discussion is a
useful starting point to learn about the issues.

Additional discussions were held on the emacs-bidi mailing list, so
its archives (circa 2001) are also a useful reading.

> If I can get a budget of, at least, 40,000 USD, I can
> persuade our boss that I spend my time on it as a side job.
> :-)

Same here.
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Eli Zaretskii | 6 Mar 05:29
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Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

> Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 11:55:50 +0900 (JST)
> From: TAKAHASHI Naoto <ntakahas <at> m17n.org>
> 
> Strange.  Does the emacs-bidi list reject posts from non-members?

Yes, I think it does.
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Eli Zaretskii | 5 Mar 18:47
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Re: Re: emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

> Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 14:26:43 +0900 (JST)
> From: TAKAHASHI Naoto <ntakahas <at> m17n.org>
> 
> > Any further details ?  Are there competing algorithms out there
> > that are deemed "acceptable" ?
> 
> Eli Zaretskii, one of the most important Emacs developers, is writing
> such a code.  I heard he has done to some extent and his code is
> expected to be included in the main trunk once finished.

Unfortunately, a series of personal disasters (well, that's an
exaggeration, actually) and daytime job committments have all but
stopped my work on this during the last year.

> Developers feel that the current emacs-bidi is not efficient enough.

Right.

> We need to find an efficient way to integrate a bidi reordering
> routine into Emacs' display engine.  I do not know well about Emacs'
> display routine so I cannot explain more.  Sorry.

Some explanation of the proposed better solution can be found in the
discussion whose pointer was posted here by Handa-san, and in the
archives of the emacs-bidi list.  Feel free to ask questions if
something there is unclear.

> > Has RMS or the emacs developers given a clear statement on what it
> > is that they'd like to see or not (URL) ?  Is there a means for us
> > to elevate Bidi's inclusion on their list of things to do ?
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Nadim Shaikli | 4 Mar 04:01
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emacs-bidi - funtional/ready, now what ?

Greetings, now that emacs-bidi has been around for over 6-months
in its current very functional state, what can be said about its
future and its possible inclusion into emacs' CVS tree ?

  http://www.m17n.org/emacs-bidi

I was recently chatting on IRC (irc.freenode.net - #emacs) about
this subject and to my surprise not many people knew of emacs-bidi's
existence let alone of whats to become of it and its inclusion.

To make a long story short and to present forward action, 'johnw'
on IRC made the following seemingly reasonable suggestions,

 1. Post a reference on gnu.emacs.sources
 2. Ask for beta testers on gnu.emacs.help
 3. Get the author to present a polished version of his changes to RMS
    - they will then to go the Emacs Devel list, and be debated there

Could someone with a bit more visibility into what's taking shape
within emacs let us know how best to proceed to make emacs-bidi an
included native functionality within emacs proper ?

Are the suggestions noted above sufficient to lead us down that road ?
What else can/needs to be done ?

PS: please CC all those included.

Regards,

 - Nadim
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