Definition of "Stable Enough To Release" for 8.2.0

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:16 PM, Greg Smith <gregsmitholpc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> After a chat with the team this week I tried to come up with a
> definition of what is "good enough to release" for 8.2.0.

Thanks.

> This is just a starting point and I'm sure we'll talk about it again.
>
> Please comment, edit and augment as needed. I may be missing some
> important areas...

> 11 - Must support all languages and keyboards previously supported.
> "support" means all previously translated strings still work in
> activities and sugar.

"Support" needs to include in its meaning

* All programs accepting text input or displaying text in any way in a
supported language/writing system combination correctly render and
print the text. Exceptions: Traditional Mongolian, until it gets into
Pango; and vertical writing (with columns in RTL order in Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, Yi, etc., and columns in LTR order in Traditional
Mongolian, Uighur, etc.), until we enhance the Activities to permit
it.

* Write, Browse, and others must correctly select text in Bidi
contexts, that is logically contiguous but visually discontinuous
selections.

* Cut, copy and paste must work correctly. In Bidi contexts. This
means correctly reordering text before displaying it.

* At some point we need to support CLDR fully. (Common Locale Data Repository).

I will be happy to discuss how much of this has been done in this
release, specific cases, standards, and how to test for these
requirements.

> All language types work the same (e.g. RTL)

The correct term here is "Bidi". Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages
of Africa and Asia with RTL text may require LTR numbers, dates, and
other Bidi features. Foreign computer terminology will typically
appear as LTR sequences within RTL text.

Also, there should be a reasonable way to configure keyboard
selection. At some point, students will have to be able to add
keyboards for the writing systems of languages they are learning.
Students should have ready access to Dvorak keyboard options.

* GUI, fine.
* Command line, might be tolerable
* Edit configuration files, no way

These are key issues. There are other nice-to-haves that I will bring
up after this release goes out.

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay