Re: X bindings in Scheme?

[H}kan Huss <eru!luth!sunic!draken!huss@bloom-beacon.mit.edu>]

rather easy. Some systems also provide interfaces to the toolkit
layers of X. In our opinion, however, the main question is not
the feasibility, but rather the desirability of this approach. We
believe that the C interface is not suited for direct use from Scheme.

To support this notion we have designed an interface between Scheme
and X called SCIX, written entirely in Scheme. What we wanted to
achieve with this system was a model of the X window system that more
closely matched the means of abstraction available in Scheme. I.e,
a model that is object-oriented from the bottom and up. We have
found that this approach makes widget construction simple and elegant.

The price of elegance is, as always, performance. Run interactively
the system is rather inefficient. Thus, in order for it to be interesting
one needs a compiling Scheme system. Our implementation is based on
the WRL Scheme->C system.

SCIX has been developed for Digital Equipment, but it is meant to be
made freely available. It is scheduled to be released in March.

Regards,

Hakan Huss              Johan Ihren
<huss@nada.kth.se>      <johani@nada.kth.se>