Re: Needed: Info on LISP X based toolkits

[Mike McMahon <MMcM@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>]

    Date: Thu, 06 Oct 88 21:49:08 -0400
    From: Mike Thome <mthome@vax.bbn.com>


		    "I wonder how the word "standard" crept into your
	    discourse.  Or rather, why you think the existence of one
	    standard precludes all others.  The beauty of a reasonable,
	    low-level standard like X and its direct CLX analogue is that you
	    can have platform hardware independence and peaceful coexistence
	    of a multitude of toolkits, or standards if you prefer."

    Wazzat?!?  Obviously you are using some definition of "standard" I have
    been previously unaware of...

Both C and LISP are ANSI standard languages.  There are even a lot of
machines which can be programmed using either one.  Standard means that
we agree on how it works, not that we agree that everything works that
way.

				   The issue at hand (I thought) is to work
    towards an OO-{window,user-interface}-{system,toolkit,"standard"} that we
    could all more-or-less agree is sortof right enough to actually use so
    that we can all write portable user interfaces.

Portability comes from the server level.  If the next level up, and the
level and above that, and so on, are all portable, then the whole user
interface is indeed portable.  I think consistent or some other
constraint is what you are getting at, not portable.  Or rather, you
want portability of the users, not the user interface itself.

						     If X/clx/clue/whatever is to
    be one of MANY (key word here) possible platforms to build a REAL
    standard user interface package on, then it is the wrong level to be
    arguing at.

Different applications will make different tradeoffs between control and
portability/consistency.  For that reason, care is required at all
levels.