Re: lynx-dev reading sjis docs [was Re: lynxcgi problem]

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 28 Dec 1999, Natasha Live wrote:

> I wasn't saying getting rid of the ability to run external
> programs/scripts, my god it would not be a unix program without the
> ability to spawn externl programs! I was only saying that external
> programs shouldn't be first avenue of fixing a problem.

But your next sentence kinda contradicts that:

> Okay i can see the
> use of external script to test new ways before full implementing them into
> lynx (saves on the bug-fix circle test-trace bug-edit
> source-compile-test),

Use of "external script to test new ways" would make them the *first*
avenue, at least for some meaning of "first" (the more relevant meaning
here).

> but to say to the end user "use this script to fix
> the tables so that lynx can understand them" is basically bad form (sorry
> best word i could think of! can't call it laziness casue you lot do a lot
> of work on the system).

Saying this to end users *may* be bad form.  Saying this on lynx-dev
is not the same as saying this to end users.  At least, one should be
able to assume that a -dev list has some readership consisting of, if
not developers, eager testers...

Anyway, you seem to assume that using an external program for some
purpose (some feature that's "in demand") must always be a process
bothersome to the user, with some annoying manual invocation or
similar.  That need not always be the case.

But of course if nearly everyone refuses to uses external solutions from
the outset there isn't much chance that they'll become smoother to use.

> A few glaring things IMHO are the table support ( i know you're working on
> it) 

I have tried to propagate the use of external solution for table
rendering in the past, maybe you are talking about that.  I've never
said that "table rendering doesn't belong into the lynx code".
If anything a wrote sounded like that, it wasn't meant that way.


> and the ability to spawn a new browser when in a windows enviro.
> Sorry this is a side-track but it is about external support.

[ Make it a new thread then, otherwise the topic will get lost...
Better yet, provide code...  [

   Klaus