RE: [Devel] Some news

[Graham Asher]

I'd like to reply quickly to some of the criticisms David has made of my
incremental font loading design:

<<<<<<
         - your changes have modified some high-level structures of
           the public API (e.g. FT_FaceRec, FT_Open_Args), and I
           believe that this is a *bad* thing.
>>>>>>

Adding new features requires changes to the public API. The changes are
backward-compatible, though not of course binary-compatible - I don't think
binary compatibility is an issue.

<<<<<<
          I'd prefer if we could move the changes of FT_FaceRec to
           the internal FT_Face_InternalRec structure (defined in
"ftobjs.h")
>>>>>>

That is possible, but I cannot see why it is a good idea. The pointer to an
incremental interface is logically a data member of the face object, so that
is where I chose to put it. Also, it's not really true that I have modified
the public API in FT_FaceRec, because the new member "FT_Face_Internal
internal" is after a comment "/address@hidden begin */", which presumably means
what it says.

<<<<<<
          Also, it's possible to not touch the FT_Open_Args structure by
          using its "params" fields instead
>>>>>>

I know. I considered doing that but rejected it on the grounds that I wanted
something that was easy to use and maintain, and relied as little as
possible on casting. FT_Params is not used anywhere, I think, and I would in
fact prefer it to be abolished. But that is just my opinion.

<<<<<<
      I have actually committed a new file named <freetype/ftincrem.h> that
      contains a _proposal_ new API to support incremental font loading
within
      FreeType without touching a single-line of "freetype.h", as well as
      providing a more OOP-like interface (something I hope Graham will
      appreciate)
>>>>>>

Sure, I'll look at it. I must say that I have no idea why not 'touching a
single-line of "freetype.h"' is regarded as a good thing. If FreeType is to
evolve and improve it must be touched, I think.

I'm a little disappointed in David's response, since I thought I was careful
and working very much in the spirit of FreeType, but I shall continue,
though rather discouraged.

Graham Asher