First Question

[Peter Paine <p2@Porter.ASL.dialnet.symbolics>]

    Date: Fri, 11 May 90 21:04 PDT
    From: Stephen L. Nicoud <snicoud@atc.boeing.com>

	Date: Fri, 11 May 90 15:16 PDT
	From: Eric Buckman <BUCKMAN@ALAN.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com>

	    Date: Fri, 11 May 90 14:30:22 PDT
	    From: felix@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Felix Ingrand)


	    Is Express Window going to be to CLIM what PCL was to CLOS?

	    I must confess I have not installed and used EW yet, but I recall it implement
	    Dynamic Window stuff, which itself is the base for the Lisp Machine CLIM
	    implementation.

	    So it looks like EW and CLIM has some common points.

	    Felix 

	That's my view.  Originally, EW was written to be a commercial product
	that brought DW type functionality to other platforms.  At about the time they
	were releasing EW for sale, it became apparent the CLIM was for the same
	purpose, but had better industry backing.  So, my guess is that is why they made
	EW public domain (i.e. free).  We are interested in using EW only because it's
	free, and my guess is that when and if we get the funding to buy CLIM, we'd be
	much better off using CLIM, because of all the obvious reasons like support, and
	later generation software.

	eric

    I guess I've viewed EW as strictly an implementation of DW for other
    Common Lisps.  We are looking into using EW for a couple of reasons (1)
    you can't beat the price (2) it offers way to get our DW-based
    applications running on other customer's hardware quickly.  Personally,
    I see it as only a temporary solution until we get, then convert to
    CLIM.  

    The rub is, though, I need portability for some of my work not today,
    but yesterday, so I can't wait until CLIM gets released for all the
    vendors.  Besides, (and you can debate the logic of having done this in
    the first place) we've invested a great deal of time into developing our
    current DW applications.  It's tough to go ask for money to RE-do old
    work.  Management is always so interested in seeing new and more
    functionality.

    Steve
    --
    Stephen L. Nicoud  <snicoud@atc.boeing.com>  uw-beaver!bcsaic!snicoud
    Boeing Advanced Technology Center for Computer Sciences

We held off using DW stuff, staying with Rel.6 message passing TV
windows, for as long as possible as it was not clear that there was any
general market for DW material outside Symbolics targets. This left us
in touch with the installed base of Smbx and TI (& LMI) machines along
with the limited GoldHill graphics we had to run on the PC.

Meanwhile, hacking DW on every possible non-persistant application as it
was so much more powerful and productive - if slow to run. CLOE was
embraced politically and found to be hard work, skinny and very late. 

So when CLIM/EW came along it seemed that the cheap and generalised
grownup lisps would at last be available widely. In Europe, there are
almost no Lispms available in academia. So the bright new graduates (and
hence new C s/w engineers in industry) know only of Lisp as that
headache with all the brackets and recursion. CLIM today is very tied up
with Symbolics, it will be some time coming and at a price.

We want a platform on which to float small utilities and gadgets in
powerful Lisp and one which we can share with the widest audience
possible. The market for Lispm developed systems seems to be confined to
enormous things like Concordia. The fact that EW is free is very
important as it will entice the participation of a lot of people who
wait and watch the doings of Lisp fraternity from the side lines -
fearful that any involment will necessitate the purchase of a Lisp
Machine (the cost of which, in Europe, is generally double that in the
US, and which brings technical and cultural isolation).

EW seems to offer a space before CLIM is dirt cheap or a standard, where
we can hope to give away Lisp applications whose value is based upon
what they can DO - rather than on the operating system licences and
hardware that are required to run the applications.

<= p2