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

[Rodney Dawes <dobey ximian com>]

On Mon, 2003-05-19 at 11:23, Radek Doulík wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-05-19 at 17:11, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> yeah, I would also rather keep using aspell interface instead of
> pspell(compat) one which will be probably deprecated at some point.

This patch shouldn't go into CVS then. All of the new distros use the
new aspell, except for Red Hat. I don't see any reason to put this here,
when it can just be removed in 4-5 months when the next RH release comes
out.

> > 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

Having the aspell packages depend on the dictionaries creates a circular
dependency between various different tarballs. This is incorrect and can
cause very bad problems. Not that the whole spelling situation on linux
isn't a total mess anyway, but the correct way to depend on having a
dictionary installed with the current mass of problems, seems to be to
have the things that use aspell, depend on aspell-dictionary.

-- dobey