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Re: Needed: Info on LISP X based toolkits



I pretty much agree with what Warren had to say in his note except
for the following:

>	1. definition of the virtual console
>		- the X server protocol
>	2. language bindings for level (1)
>		- CLX
>	3. window/stream objects
>		- requires CLOS
>		- requires CL streams to be implemented as objects


This assumes (as does the rest of Warren's note) that the host window
system is and will always be X. There are currently Common Lisp implementations
running on Mac's and PC's which don't target to X host systems. Furthermore,
both NeWS and Display Postscript (which will be on the NeXT machine) aren't
X based. 

The big win of Common Lisp in general is that it defines a high level
virtual machine which insulates application developers from the underlying
hardware. It seems as if a "window virtual machine" combining Level 2 & 3
insulating application developers from the underlying host window systems
could make window based applications more portable.
Since the window virtual machine is likely to require stream objects, 
it seems more appropriate to implement it as a combination of 2 & 3. Thus
the underlying window system would remain opaque to the application, and
the window virtual machine level could be nicely object-oriented.

The "thousand flowers" in Stan's original note could then bloom at the
toolkit level, since different applications are likely to require different
ways of interacting with them.

		jak