Re: [Gnome-print] Re: RFC: A draft proposal ...

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel helixcode com>]

> I was *not* proposing to dump gnome-print, but rather to make it *use*
> a PostScript look-alike language for application <-> rasterizer 
> communication. 

If you had looked at gnome-print before posting, you would have
noticed:

	1. That is it not a new language
	2. That it is a C api that has the *SAME* imaging model as
	   Postscript.
	3. That the very first driver ever wrote was Postscript.

> Moreover, PostScript is a turing-complete programming language,
> allowing "unlimited" flexibility and neat tricks (user-defined
> functions, or network-transparent procedural shaders -- part of the
> PostScript level 3+ specification, IIRC).

We add the features that we need to gnome-print to handle that, and we
would be able to render them into any Poscript printer, not only the
Postscript 3+ printers.  

So, we have a better solution in the end.

> That is *exactly* what I had in mind when writing the RFC ! In fact,
> I was just proposing to extend GhostScript to avoid code
> duplication.

Please, go read the Ghostscript source code, and tell me "I want to
work on top of this framework, because it is good".

I will be waiting for you to come back to tell me that.

> If this cannot be done, how much would it "cost" to develop an extensible,
> powerful, modular PS-like language interpreter from scratch ? 

Why do I want to write a modular language like PS?  I dont care about
writing another language for such a little gain.   An application
developer could care *less* about this.

What is wrong with the gnome-print approach?  

I think your proposal is not realistic.  I will continue working on
gnome-print, and wait for you to invent a new language.

Miguel.