Path: ntt-twins!nttlab!titcca!kogwy!scslwide!wsgw!sun.com From: hmuller@sun.com (Hans Muller) Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.x-window Subject: Re: Abstracting the Windowing System Interface Message-ID: <47955@wsgw.ws.sony.co.jp> Date: 6 Feb 90 07:20:34 GMT Sender: daemon@ws.sony.co.jp Distribution: fj Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc Lines: 40 Approved: michael@ws.sony.co.jp Date: 6 Feb 90 06:20:38 GMT Message-Id: References: <200@esl.ESL.COM>, <33619@news.Think.COM> Sender: xpert-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu > From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) > I'm not going to get in the argument over whether or not this is reasonable > (but I think it is). To answer your question, Xerox and International Lisp > Associates developed a window-system-independent windowing interface, > called Solo, in order to implement CLIM, the Common Lisp Interface Manager > (a portable UIMS for Common Lisp systems). Solo is a project we're working on at Sun - it's a CLOS interface to XView and Xlib. At this point Solo doesn't have anything to do with CLIM, although you've characterized it correctly: it's a portable interface that supports basic window/image/font/color operations as well as user interface components like buttons and menus. I agree with the direction that the current discussion on this topic seems to be proceeding: building a portable abstraction of a window system interface (like Xlib) involves making some difficult performance and features tradeoffs. I think one way to take some of the bite out of these tradeoffs is to admit that some applications will carefully go behind the portable interface to get some special feature or extra performance. What you're really doing in this case is adding some application specific feature to the portable interface and agreeing to support it yourself. Naturally the cost of porting your application will increase according to the amount of behind-the-curtain code you write. > Sorry, I don't have the technical paper here, so I can't tell you how to > contact the developers. A paper about Solo appeared in the 1989 OOPSLA proceedings. It's not in the table of contents but it's in there. I'm one of the developers and you can contact me at HMuller@sun.com. Hans Muller