Relations to window standardization

[edsel!bhopal!jonl@navajo.stanford.edu (Jon L White)]

Two messages recently appearing on the cl-windows mailing list:


Date: Fri, 20 Feb 87 23:43:36 PST
From: navajo!edsel!bhopal!jonl@navajo.stanford.edu (Jon L White)
To: navajo!Fahlman%C.CS.CMU.EDU@navajo.stanford.edu
Cc: navajo!cl-windows%SAIL@navajo.stanford.edu
In-Reply-To: "Scott E. Fahlman"'s message of Fri, 20 Feb 1987  22:45 EST
Subject: CW Standard Status


One possibility for standardization in the Common Lisp world is merely
on a user-interface to a window system.  Having seen the sentiment on
this list, and others, it seems that folks clearly want
   (1) some sort of object-oriented interface
   (2) and one which doesn't require research-project-level effort
       to understand and use.
I guess that is why the disussions often tie together a potential window 
system candidate with an o-o candidate.  

Let us very-hypothetically suppose that some o-o standard emerges within 
the next year; then what do you think? can a reasonable subset of window
capability be described in o-o terms?  This would not be the kind of 
standard where everybody had to implement the features described in the 
interface, or were restricted to it; but rather it would say "if you 
provide capability Z, then the user interface to it should look like ....".

I'd expect that over time, there would come to be a certain minimum
set of required capabilities that everyone agreed would have to be 
implemented in order for a candidate to call itself a window system.  
I think we can rule out the ASR/35 and friends as being any part of 
a "window" system.


-- JonL --



Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1987  20:42 EST
Sender: navajo!FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <navajo!Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: edsel!bhopal!jonl@navajo.stanford.edu (Jon L White)
Cc: cl-windows@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: CW Standard Status
In-Reply-To: Msg of 21 Feb 1987  02:43-EST from edsel!bhopal!jonl at navajo.stanford.edu (Jon L White)


Sure, given an object-oriented standard, it's just a matter of figuring
out what higher-level abstractions are most appropriate and convenient
for a graphics/windows interface.  If a consensus emerges about that,
then it's just a small matter of turning that consensus into a formal
standard.  In order for this consensus to develop, we need some
experience, some good ideas, someone to work out a coherent proposal,
and someone to implement that proposal in reasonably portable
public-domain code.

I think that this may eventually happen.  I don't know how long it will
take.  Most of the groups I know about are just starting to experiment
with this stuff.  Maybe there are segments of the Lisp community that
already have enough experience with objects and graphics to understand
what a really good set of abstractions would look like.  If that same
set of people have the time and motivation to produce a proposal and
supporting code, then we could make very fast progress; if not, then
we're in for a couple of years of experimentation.  If most of us can
work on a shared low-level substrate such as X, then the experimentation
will go more quickly because we can share what we develop.

-- Scott