[fontforge-users] abrupt exits and a question

[Clair Dunn]

Sadly this seems to be the ONLY glyph I can work on. No matter what
route I take to call up another glyph, FF just quits.

When I start it up again, I am able to work on the cent sign, but that's
it. So right now, I am a "one-glyph-wonder"! lol

AND the question:

Do developers see this forum. I mean, will one of them see my msgs.
about the exits?

Thanks - still new, so I will have questions. And I appreciate all help.
Thanks again.

[Martin B. Brilliant]

To any developer who sees this:

Full disclosure: I was a Fortran wizard on the IBM 360/370 in the 1970’s and I wrote an accounting system in C in Unix in the 1980’s. I know little beyond that.

I do know a little about memory allocation. You have to do it right. A segmentation fault means the program has tried to access memory where it does not have memory allocated to it. It is not the fault of the user. It’s the fault of the programmer. It happens when the user gets to a part of the program where memory allocation has not been done right.

In other words, at least one piece of the gorillion lines of code that make up the FontForge system is wrong and needs to be done over.

Post by Clair Dunn
Sadly this seems to be the ONLY glyph I can work on. No matter what
route I take to call up another glyph, FF just quits.
When I start it up again, I am able to work on the cent sign, but that's
it. So right now, I am a "one-glyph-wonder"! lol
Do developers see this forum. I mean, will one of them see my msgs.
about the exits?
Thanks - still new, so I will have questions. And I appreciate all help.
Thanks again.

[Jose Da Silva]

Post by Martin B. Brilliant
Full disclosure: I was a Fortran wizard on the IBM 360/370 in the 1970’s
and I wrote an accounting system in C in Unix in the 1980’s. I know
little beyond that.
I do know a little about memory allocation. You have to do it right. A
segmentation fault means the program has tried to access memory where
it does not have memory allocated to it. It is not the fault of the
user. It’s the fault of the programmer. It happens when the user gets
to a part of the program where memory allocation has not been done
right.
In other words, at least one piece of the gorillion lines of code that
make up the FontForge system is wrong and needs to be done over.

Hi Martin,
You are correct about the memory, but also noting...
Your talents would be well appreciated here.
...but that's if you have the time...
...and if you have the interest to help improve the gorrillian code. ;-P

If you can successfully compile the code from source, add a few tweaks, and
compile it again successfully, then you are in good standing to begin
experimenting with the code.

From your description, what has changed at most is that subroutines have
changed from one main-master routine:
main {
wait for key choice x
do stuff
return results
}

...to be called from a mouse-click instead:
mouse-click-routine-x {
do stuff;
return results;
}

from your description, I think you would feel quite at home looking at stuff
like fontforge/scripting.c or fontforge/python.c, but before taking-on a
monster like that, you may want to try something a lot easier, like maybe
something very atomic, independent, and undisturbing of the larger
picture...if you want to give that a try, would you be interested in
looking at adding something like pcx read/write in the gimage directory
alongside tiff,gif,etc?

...more advice coming, assuming you're interested.

Cheers!
Joe

[Jose Da Silva]

Joe,
I’m interested.

Sounds encouraging.
Rather than be a private lesson, I'll post in the developer mailing list
with the assumption that even though one person has questions, there are
several "lurkers" that are interested but haven't asked, aren't sure what
to ask, or think the question they may have is too dumb to ask.

The reason for posting in the developer mailing list is because it's about
coding, this way we won't be cluttering the user mailing list about C, when
this list is mainly about font design, and how to...etc.
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fontforge-devel

[Jose Da Silva]

Hi Joe --
What a wonderful reply this is. And, yes, I'm completely familiar with
the vicissitudes of life and their relation to Open Source work! I never
meant to demand; merely to ask if developers were here in this forum! I
can't tell you how much I appreciate the FF developers. They have my
undying support! (Not that that is worth much -- lol.)

As long as you didn't take the reply personally.
Assume there are many lurkers reading - I, and then you, have answered a
question that may not have occurred with them.

I already did delete my cent file, because the next day, ??? I worked
for hours with no issues.

There are many assumptions in the program...so if you follow a given path,
you could work at it for hours without a problem, but if you do something
unexpected, it doesn't deal with it properly. Many of the 700+ bugs listed
fall into this second category.

Anyway, I'm very interested in valgrind and will investigate -- I was a
tech writer/junior programmer at Vermont Creative Software years ago and
one of our products was a similar one, called Ghost. Our main product
was Vermont Views a front end C library for database programmers, which
was pretty well known in the programming world at the time.

I'm familiar with Ghost, and Partition Magic.
Glad to hear you are versed in the black-arts of C.

Anyway, as I get more familiar with FF, (I'm making my way through all
the tutorials/messages/articles I can find.) I hope I can eventually be
useful on that end of things.

Even if you aren't a programmer, there are a lot of avenues to follow.
For example, your (personal) search for all sorts of info suggests the
existing documentation may be weak in some areas and could use some extra
info (you gained personally and think worth adding - while fresh in your
mind): https://github.com/fontforge/designwithfontforge.com

There are some developers that do only translation (I've seen several
languages upgraded added to the po directory, without a single line of C
contributed.

Some help files can use a bit of updating (doc html directory).

...and certainly, of course, the C code itself, you found one spot where
the program falls-over, but there are many other places as well.

[Clair Dunn]

Post by Jose Da Silva
I'm familiar with Ghost, and Partition Magic.
Glad to hear you are versed in the black-arts of C.

One of my closest and oldest friends wrote Ghost single-handedly. He
lives not far from me in Northern Vermont.

I will follow up on your suggestions and poke around on the web and
github with an eye to my future usefulness.

Thanks again.

[Clair Dunn]

Hi Joe --

Post by Jose Da Silva
I'm familiar with Ghost, and Partition Magic.
Glad to hear you are versed in the black-arts of C.

One of my closest and oldest friends wrote Ghost single-handedly. He
lives not far from me in Northern Vermont.

I will follow up on your suggestions and poke around on the web and
github with an eye to my future usefulness.

Thanks again.

Post by Jose Da Silva

Hi Joe --
What a wonderful reply this is. And, yes, I'm completely familiar with
the vicissitudes of life and their relation to Open Source work! I never
meant to demand; merely to ask if developers were here in this forum! I
can't tell you how much I appreciate the FF developers. They have my
undying support! (Not that that is worth much -- lol.)

As long as you didn't take the reply personally.
Assume there are many lurkers reading - I, and then you, have answered a
question that may not have occurred with them.

I already did delete my cent file, because the next day, ??? I worked
for hours with no issues.

There are many assumptions in the program...so if you follow a given path,
you could work at it for hours without a problem, but if you do something
unexpected, it doesn't deal with it properly. Many of the 700+ bugs listed
fall into this second category.

Anyway, I'm very interested in valgrind and will investigate -- I was a
tech writer/junior programmer at Vermont Creative Software years ago and
one of our products was a similar one, called Ghost. Our main product
was Vermont Views a front end C library for database programmers, which
was pretty well known in the programming world at the time.

I'm familiar with Ghost, and Partition Magic.
Glad to hear you are versed in the black-arts of C.

Anyway, as I get more familiar with FF, (I'm making my way through all
the tutorials/messages/articles I can find.) I hope I can eventually be
useful on that end of things.

Even if you aren't a programmer, there are a lot of avenues to follow.
For example, your (personal) search for all sorts of info suggests the
existing documentation may be weak in some areas and could use some extra
info (you gained personally and think worth adding - while fresh in your
mind): https://github.com/fontforge/designwithfontforge.com
There are some developers that do only translation (I've seen several
languages upgraded added to the po directory, without a single line of C
contributed.
Some help files can use a bit of updating (doc html directory).
...and certainly, of course, the C code itself, you found one spot where
the program falls-over, but there are many other places as well.
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