CLIM issues 1 and 2

[Scott_Fahlman@SEF-PMAX.SLISP.CS.CMU.EDU]

I guess we should form an internal consensus and then I will send in our
single vote.  I find that the following view matches mine almost exactly
(though I doubt that we will be able to get them to drop the POINT class
and all those damned *'s).  All of this stuff looks to me like the usual
Symbolics "we might want it someday" bloat, though I won't say that...

Any dissent?

-- Scott
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To: clim-alu-conf@pravda.cc.gatech.edu
Cc: kanderson@BBN.COM
Subject: RE issue #1, issue #2
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 92 15:00:20 -0500
From: kanderso@BBN.COM


Issue #1: Flush classes PATH and AREA.

I had the same feeling that Bill York did when reading about paths and
areas - where's there behavior.  I believe they should be flushed.  If the
idea was to provide some path support, as in POSTSCRIPT, i believe this
should be build out of existing CLIM primitives rather than directly
supported.

Issue #2: Flush all region types except POINT, RECTANGLE, and rectangle sets.

I would go even further than this.  I would say drop everthing that hasn't
already shown itself to be useful in the implementation of existing CLIM's.
I hate POINTS since i never use them and they require me to type an extra
"*" whenever i call a DRAW-... function, and they bloat my LISP.  I think
that having a set of classes that are closed under afine transformation is
an interesting exercise, but not a requirement for my CLIM programming.  A
graphic artist, or a teacher might make use of these things, but i think
they should be added on top of CLIM.

MThome suggested that such classes might be useful for highlighting complex
presentations.  If that's the case, i'd be willing to go along with them.
However, they are probably too heavyweight.

If we did implement the full proposed set, one could argue that we didn't
go far enough.  For example why can't we rotate the output history of a
window 90% so it fits better on the screen.  In a future when we have round
horizontal screens and we all stand around working on them, like a kitchen
table that might be great, but i'll wait.

k