kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/30/19 4:36 AM, Jeff Young wrote:
> We had talked earlier about throwing the wxWidgets UTF8 compile switch to get rid of our wxString re-entrancy problems.  However, I noticed that the 6.0 work packages doc includes an item for std::string-ization of the BOARD.  (While a lot more work, this is a better solution because it also increases our gui-toolkit-choice flexibility.)
> 
> I’d like to propose that we use std::wstring for that.  UTF8 should *only* be an encoding format (similar to s-expr).  It should never be used internally.  That’s what unicode wchar_t’s are for.
> 
> And I’d like to propose that we extend std::wstring-ization to SCH_ITEM and LIB_ITEM.  (Then we can get rid of a bunch of our ugly mutex hacks.)


I've been looking at this for a few months now.  I think it is so important, that a
sub-committee should be formed, and if that committee takes as long as 4 months to come to
a recommendation, this would not be too long.  This issue is simply too critical.

I would like to volunteer to be on that committee.  For the entire list to participate in
this simply does not make sense to me.  I would welcome the opportunity to study this with
a team of 5-6 players.  More than that probably leads to anxiety.  Then, given the
recommendations, the list would of course have an opportunity to raise questions and take
shots, before a strategy is formulated, and before anything is implemented.

Again, approximately:

  committee recommendations -> list approval -> strategy formulation -> implementation


Up to now I have looked at many libraries and have [way *too* much] experience in multiple
languages on multiple platforms, so I think I can be valuable contributor.

The final work product initially would simply be a list of recommendations, that quickly
transforms to a strategy thereafter.  This is an enormous undertaking, so I suggest
against racing to a solution.  It could look a lot easier than it will ultimately be, as
is typical in software development.  But the return on investment needs to be near optimal
in the end.

Some questions to answer are:

a) How did wxString get to its current state?  Is is merely a conglomeration of after
thought, or is is anywhere near optimal.

b) Why so many forms of it?  Can one form be chosen for all platforms?

c) How does wxString it compare to QtString?

d) What does the set of characters that don't fall into UCS2 actually look like?  How big
is this set, really?  (UTF16 is bigger than UCS2 and picks up the difference.)

e) For data files, I think UTF8 is fine.  So the change is for RAM manipulation of
strings.  Aren't we talking about a RAM resident string that bridges into the GUI seamlessly?

f) What does new C++ language support offer?

g) What do C++ language designers suggest?


etc.

But this is best continued in a smaller group, as said.


The other thing that I bring to this is vast familiarity with KiCad's internal workings,
string use cases, and goals.

Let me know if I can help.

Regards,

Dick