[Gambas-user] shell highlighting on non beta gambas

[Bruce Steers]

Personally i don't get it.
where gambas is so "modular" based in essence with many components just
being gambas apps in the /usr/lib/gambas3 folder it seems an obvious and
harmless solution to me.

It's like one of my apps , written on gambas 3.15 but PCODE variable set as
no modern bytecode to conflict.
I run this app on a lesser gambas and it works just fine, for anyone.
But in this case with my adjustments i have used the version of gambas i
intended the patches to be on so no PCODE needed.

So i edited the TextEditor by making a harmless addition to
eval.highlight.gambas and form.editor.gambas, using gambas too not getting
into the C code compilation and seriously messing things around.

The terminalview re-compilation was about addressing a bug (mostly the
error when using the "clear" command)
The texteditor change wasn't about a bug more about enabling more highlight
features for others.
(well apart from highlight_gambas rewriting code, re-compilation has
included that fix too as i consider that dangerous)
and yes i could (and have) written code in my app to warn others of that
bug but even better, there's 2 better components i've compiled that fix the
problem so nobody else falls over at that hurdle like i did and have to
spend half a day fixing a bash script.

I also added the ability to have quotes wrap text like braces do if you
press the Alt key. A feature i've spoken to Ben about and he does not want
it added the way i added it, and to be clear all i added was "And If
Key.Alt" to commented existing code that used to do it without the alt key
being pressed. I believe Ben didn't want it that way as he wants to rewrite
the code on a deeper level , this i fully understand but the question is
when ? and i have no desire to be pushy to try to get him to do it. and now
no need, i can do it this way for now. then if and when the code gets
re-written i can adapt.

I sort of get it, if it were a race all you folks would be at the front
getting all the cheers. i'm at the back helping those struggling, getting
cheers of a different kind and jeers from others, meh so be it., we all
have our different roles to play. we can't all be winners ;)

I don't really see the problem, especially this way i've done it.  before i
forked a whole gambas branch and edited the controls for a whole compile
and make install. but realised what i'm doing here is to help those who
cannot or will not compile the whole thing so not addressing the problem.

So, a slightly adjusted compile (or re-make) of 2 components for versions
of gambas that will never be updated/changed and make the patched
components a problem.
I'm finding the patches to work brilliantly on lesser gambas's, now i got
shell highlighting and no worries of gambas highlight mode rewriting code
for me, and not terminalview error messages, wohoo :)  how can this be bad?


But if you lead users of your software to install* the latest dev
> version of Gambas, you might put them at risk because dev versions are
> not stable and may contain far worse bugs!
>
> And if you fork Gambas and change old stable versions, you will probably
> not find anyone in this list who wants to talk to you about that,
> because this would no be the Gambas we all agree on.
>

yes i realised forking a whole gambas and changing it's version number was
a bit cheeky but at the time was the only solution i saw for my issues. I
thought the versionchange was important in case anyone reports a bug, you
could easily tell it was not an official version that way.
Now though i've seen a different route of just recompiling a couple of
components. just a patch.

and the statement above that has a dilemma in the fact that 3.15.2 was far
from stable. the dev version with it's fixes was much better but still has
issues so for anything 3.15 all you could do was point people to an
unstable version.  Sorry but no.
for better stability you'd go for 3.14 and no further. As i had to while
3.15.90 was unusable, 3.15.2 wasn't much better. so 3.14 I went.

My coding ability is not good enough to help with the new dev gambas as
things are happening on a deeper level that i do not understand, but my
patches, this i can manage just fine. And they work just fine.

for me the "gambas I agree on" being a developer is the gambas people will
use or try to use my apps on, and that's all from 3.12 to 3.15
they are all out there being used and i have to think that way, for all,
not just the forerunners.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't upset too many people.
Just being pragmatic.

BruceS
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.gambas-basic.org/pipermail/user/attachments/20201119/00bf7b48/attachment.htm>