Re: [evolution-patches] [PATCH] Allow gnome-spell to work with pspell 0.12.x in addition to aspell 0.50

[Jeremy Katz <katzj redhat com>]

On Mon, 2003-05-19 at 10:53, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> We should probably make gnome-spell just use the pspell interfaces, and
> in aspell 0.50, just use the pspell compat layer. This is what Abiword
> does, and it works very nicely. 

Actually, moving towards using the newer interfaces as much as possible
is the right direction.  But due to the variety of problems with
dictionaries and the like, providing a compatibility layer for a while
until the newer aspell is actually deployed everywhere eases
transitions.  If everyone says "let's just use the pspell compat layer",
then the time for switching is just postponed until the aspell
maintainer pulls that (whether due to wanting to add interfaces that
would break it or just not wanting to maintain it any longer).  If
you're already using the new interface when that happens with a fallback
for people using older versions, then you're ready and don't have to
worry about it.  And in a year or two when no one is using pspell 0.12
anymore, you just kill the compatibility layer in gnome-spell.

Also, even if you go that route, it does nothing to help the fact that
aspell has changed its dictionary naming with 0.50 from the form en-US
to en_us.  

> For packages, the aspell-<lang> packages
> should provide aspell-dictionary, and anything that needs to use the
> pspell/aspell combo should depend on aspell-dictionary >= the version
> of pspell/aspell that it was linked against. In the case of pspell 0.12,
> the packages should depend on aspell-dictionary >= 0.33.7.1 and
> aspell-dictionary < 0.50. This will make sure the proper versions are
> installed, at least according to the packaging system, which is all that
> should matter in our worlds anyway. :)

As far as I can tell, this has no bearing on the patch.  But FWIW, you
probably just want to have your aspell packages depend on
aspell-dictionary and not every aspell using package.

Cheers,

Jeremy