Re: SVG support in Emacs: what happened?

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> It sounds like you're saying this code is not well written.
> Is that what you mean?

Ah. No. I'm very sorry if that sounded like my personal judgement on the
code, especially as I wouldn't even claim the expertise to make such a
judgement. 

My use of the adjective "hacky" was just an attempt to summarize how the
original author (Paul Pogonyshev) described the code: "Here is the first
shot.  It is extremely non-portable, hackish and ugly, but it works!"

At the time, you wrote "I don't have time to read the code":

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2004-09/msg00903.html

So I didn't have anything else to go on other than Paul's own verdict.

Many apologies to Paul if he likewise assumed I was taking it upon
myself to criticize his code.

> 2. If it is well written, we could add it (after the release), if we
> get legal papers from the authors.

I asked if there was "some fundamental roadblock against patching
current Emacs CVS with something like this code". Paul just said he sees
no obstacle. Back in 2004, Paul said: "I may be willing to have a try
[at creating a patch], provided that 'librsvg' usage is acceptable." As
far as I can tell from your comments in the original thread, librsvg
usage /is/ acceptable.

If that's so, the remaining questions are:

1. What does the code need to make it "portable"?

2. What makes it "ugly", other than non-portability?

3. Is Paul (or anyone else) (in 2007) "willing to have a try" at turning
it from a "first shot" into a final patch?

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis