Subject: International wordprocessing.

From: Jan Andersen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 12:15:44 +0100

Hi.

This is the first time I mail to this list, so i'll start by
introducing myself. I'm a software developer, working in
Denmark at a company called CRI. I've been working at PC's for
the last 12 years - right now I develop programs for OS/2
(Presentation Manager), which is an excellent operating system
in my opinion; better than Windows by a long shot.

I'm very interested in the discussion about wordprocessing and
fonts, and I think I may have a qualyfied opinion about this
subject. I believe that it would be fair to say, that word
processing (on a computer) must at least include: font handling,
keyboard handling, text presentation (screen and printer), text
formatting and 'tools' (like spell checking, name identification
(I'd like that feature in Chinese!), etc.).

I have very good experiences with designing programs in such a
way that they are 'general', that is: the program in itself does
not know anything specific about 'the world' (printer, screen
etc.), but it is able to communicate in a standardized way with
other programs (or programparts; -> 'drivers') that each handle
one limited aspect of the exterior world. Like most word
processors: how to print text on a specific printer is quite
unknown to the wordprocessing part of the program. Printing is
handled by a more or less external driver, that is able to
translate the wordprocessor's wishes about how the text should
look to 'printing actions'.

One great advantage about splitting up wordprocessing in 'actual
wordprocessing' and 'drivers' (handling fonts, etc. etc.) is that
often you can make a driver 'configurable' so that you're able to
tell e.g. the font driver by means of parameters how each single
character should be created on a screen or printer, how to
interpret diverse codes (like which binary values correspond to
which character) etc. In that way the font driver could be made
so that it would understand ANY encoding scheme like GouBiao,
BIG5, HZ or some future scheme, for that matter. Likewise the
keyboard driver could be made so that it could interpret ANY
input method and keyboard-to-character-code mapping. That would
be nice, wouln't it?

Another advantage of doing things this way is that it becomes
MUCH easier to write the actual program.

Hope this wasn't too long a message. Maybe somebody would like
to comment these viewpoints - I'd appreciate it. :)

[email-masked]