Eval - Pro's and Con's (was Re: Dylan rather than CL -- why?)

[Michael B. Johnson <wave@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>]

   Date: Tue, 8 Dec 92 13:41:02 EST
   From: samp@kurz-ai.com (Sam Pilato)

   The Apple event object model is a protocol for allowing applications
   to control each other and work collaboratively.  In effect it
   specifies a standard "syntax" of structured-object event descriptions
   for which a target application must determine the appropriate set of
   local data and the appropriate method to apply to them.

   Is it useful to consider what READ/EVAL, foreign "expression"
   interfaces, foreign function interfaces, and foreign application
   interfaces have or should have in common?  Applications/processes may
   have more and more the look of actors having functional contracts,
   interfaced in more complex ways than UNIX pipes.

   For example, the reader for "(+ 1 2)" may be a foreign process, and
   deliver '(+ 1 2) for my home process to evaluate.  More realistically,
   a speech recognizer may do the "reading", and deliver an event object
   for me to "evaluate".

Absolutely.  If you couldn't have READ/EVAL, I'm not interested in
Dylan.  I might as well be writing in C.


-->  Michael B. Johnson
-->  MIT Media Lab      --  Computer Graphics & Animation Group
-->  (617) 253-0663     --  wave@media-lab.media.mit.edu