From: Daniel Winkowski
Subject: Query - Windowing Environments with Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <16706@mimsy.UUCP>
With moves towards standardization of X, what is the status of
lisp based windowing environments? Specifically:
o What is XCL and who supports it?
o What is CLUE and who supports it?
o Is Common Windows dead? If not what new work is being done?
o Are there any products which support a better window development
(for creating window based interfaces, not developing in windows)
environment across platforms? I have heard of Y windows from ILA.
o Which major lisp vendor provides the best support for developing
window based interfaces? How do they compare?
Answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated, as there seems to be
much confusion in this area.
Daniel G. Winkowski (301) 725-1333
ARPA & CSNet: ···@mimsy.umd.edu
UUCP: uunet!mimsy!dgw
From: Charles A. Cox
Subject: Re: Query - Windowing Environments with Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <28674@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
[The following response is from Jim Veitch, manager of the lisp-based
environments group at Franz Inc.]
In article <·····@mimsy.UUCP> ···@mimsy.UUCP (Daniel Winkowski) writes:
>
> With moves towards standardization of X, what is the status of
>lisp based windowing environments? Specifically:
>
> o What is XCL and who supports it?
XCL is a low-level interface into Xlib written by Dave Martin formerly
of UC Berkeley. It uses straight foreign function calls and is a very thin
veneer over Xlib. I don't know if this is supported.
> o What is CLUE and who supports it?
CLUE is basically a CLOS based Lisp version of Xlib. It comes from
Kerry Kimbrough at TI.
> o Is Common Windows dead? If not what new work is being done?
Common Windows is being slowly extended at Franz Inc. and is now ported on
X11r3 and Sun's NeWS on top of Franz Inc.'s Allegro CL. Intellicorp distribute
versions on Lisp machines and on top of the window system in Lucid Lisp.
There is a CLOS based version of Common Windows called Uncommon Windows from
BBN. I don't know whether it is public domain.
> o Are there any products which support a better window development
> (for creating window based interfaces, not developing in windows)
> environment across platforms? I have heard of Y windows from ILA.
Y windows is still relatively early in the design process. ILA's goal for the
design is specifically for window based interfaces, but I haven't used it all.
When I saw it was still pretty much output only.
> o Which major lisp vendor provides the best support for developing
> window based interfaces? How do they compare?
The answer to this is probably: one of the hardware Lisp machines. At
the risk of sounding commercial, among the stock Lisp vendors, I can
answer that Franz is strongly committed to X11 support and improved
toolkits for building window based applications in Lisp.
>Answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated, as there seems to be
>much confusion in this area.
Currently there is a great deal of interest in everyone getting together and
developing some sort of interim standard. But there is really no
consensus yet. About the most that has happened is that many of the Lisp
window developers are settling on X11 with CLX (from LaMott Oren at TI)
as the low level Lisp<-->X11 interface. Franz's Allegro Common Windows,
(I believe) ILA's Y windows, and CLUE are all built on top of CLX.
Ramana Rao of Xerox PARC has also made a CLOS based window design.
Jim Veitch,
··············@Berkeley.EDU
From: Daniel M Floyd
Subject: Re: Query - Windowing Environments with Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <1549@wasatch.utah.edu>
In article <·····@mimsy.UUCP> ···@mimsy.UUCP (Daniel Winkowski) writes:
> With moves towards standardization of X, what is the status of
>lisp based windowing environments?
The University of Utah PASS group has a project to put X on top of
Common Lisp. A colleague is doing most of the work. I expect
results in about three months. It would be premature to say anything
other than he is working on it.
Dan Floyd
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