[Uim] Development reformation: Current status of uim

[YamaKen]

Hi folks, let's start to reform our development. At first, we
should share our own status.

Viewing from my eyes, current uim trunk seems as below. Please
confirm it.

Because the information will be used as the facts which
subsequent development plan is based on, please fix and
complement the information to avoid misdirections.

  - achievements

    * uim-skk is well-featured to meet the requirements of most
      users

    * uim-anthy and uim-canna are lacking some important
      features, and having some hard problems (e.g. kana input)

    * Hangul IM is going to be useful with the Park Jae-hyeon's
      contribution

    * implementation status and stability of uim-prime is
      unknown for me

    * uim-m17nlib is lacking user customization data bridging
      between m17nlib and uim. other features and stability is
      unknown for me

    * uim-scim is broken

    * IM bridges are mostly covering input environments on UNIX
      flavors

    * uim-el (the Emacs bridge) is going to be finished

    * basic IM-switching feature is working but seriously not
      useful for frequent operation

    * graphical preference editor is usable although some aspect
      of the UI is still rough

    * toolbar is useful for basic user requirements although
      more extensions (icon etc) are anticipated

    * standard conformance of the Scheme interpreter is not
      enough

    * the Scheme interpreter consumes slightly large memories

    * the mark and sweep garbage collection is heavy for
      low-power environemnts

  - code organizations

    1. architectural limitation is preventing feature extensions
    2. some part of libuim API are not useful and it costs
       bridge development heavy
    3. the codes of libuim is complicated and easily spawn bugs
       if edited

  - development motivations

    * there is no committer that have a passion to refine
      user-oriented desktop usability (like scim-anthy achieved)
      even if heavy effort is cost architecturally (this will be
      changed once the composer introduced)

    * there is no committer that want to refine the awkward look
      and feel of the uim-pref for now

    * YamaKen has enough passion to reform the overall
      architectures and enthusiastic IM components

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YamaKen  yamaken at bp.iij4u.or.jp