Re: [emacs-bidi] Bidi - will it happen ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, Tim Freedom wrote:

> > I'd expect that as well.  Also, emacs-bidi is a public mailing list, so 
> > anyone who is interested can easily subscribe and read what's available.
> 
> With all due respect, I did a search on google and a few other search
> engines in hopes of finding how would a volunteer know/hear of this
> forgoing private email.  I did a search on "emacs-devel" and "bidi"
> and got virtually nothing (the only detailish mention of emacs and bidi
> including status is on this list, for what its worth).

Sorry, I don't understand: did your Google search find the emacs-bidi 
list or didn't it?  If it did, then that's all I'd expect: the next step 
is to study the archives of this list.

If Google did NOT find this list, then please tell what words did you use 
in Google.

> I didn't find any search abilities specific to either list

You can search with your Web browser.  Or you can download the archives 
to your local machine and search with whatever tools you have there.

> and so I might be a bit
> naive in my thinking, but from my experience no one who hasn't been
> previously involved or exposed to bidi in the past would know what bidi
> is and/or its requirements.

I don't see how someone who doesn't know what bidi is can help us add 
bidi support to Emacs.  There's some amount of background knowledge that 
is required to even understand the issues.

> Furthermore, if the info is presented such
> that no Bidi knowledge is required to complete the code, I would guess
> a greater deal more people would want to look into this as it would fit
> within their knowledge base (ie. they don't have to learn something new).

There's no way one can start working on this without knowing anything 
about bidi.  The Unicode UAX#9 is the minimum required reading; a good 
acquaintence with Emacs is another.  Command of some language that needs 
bidi support is also very important.

> I went back to emacs-devel (raw text search) for the past 7 months and
> saw no mention of Bidi status/help-call.

??? What exactly did you look for?  There are numerous discussions about 
who might be willing to work on this.  7 months is too short, I think 
this list was dormant for most of that time.  Look 2 or 3 years back.

> I'm not refuting your expert
> expectations, but what's the harm in making explicit mention of Bidi's
> current status and what's required to complete it

Nothing is wrong with that; I simply don't have time and resources to 
create and maintain such a page.  If someone does that, I'll applaud.

> This is the last I will post about this topic to everyone's relief :)

You are not annoying anyone, so please do speak up if you want.