[Openmcl-devel] we need more aliens and beggars on the list who use GUIs (wws2)

[Alexander Repenning]

On Apr 5, 2010, at 9:38 AM, wws2 new wrote:

> Perhaps I am simply advocating (and begging) that those that go for more should define a layer like I advocate that opens up the basic functionality of PORTABLE COMMON LISP.  I would like to see an intermediate layer that is not all carbonised and cocoafied, except in the handful of files that defines  the lisp functions for (open-graphics-window #@(200 400)) and (draw-line window #@(10 10) #@(190 390) *red-color* *grey-texture) and (place-menu window :items (list (list "Red" *red-color*) (list "Blue" *blue-color*)) :action #'(lambda (self) ...)) and related event handlers.  As well as the rest of the handful, namely  Urwerk and Open-Westream with standard idioms for (file-date ) (directory ) (alias-file-p ) and (get-data-from-url ... ).
> 

I think we basically already have this. We called it LUI the Lisp User Interface. It is part of XMLisp - you don't need to use the XML if you don't want to. LUI is a layer that has been implemented in Cocoa, previously in Carbon and also Franz Window API. LUI works on Windows as well on top of CCL using Cocotron. Cocotron is a pretty large subset of Cocoa for Windows. You can run the same source on Macs and PCs. 


> I think that if LISP is to remain relevant and rejuvenate itself, it must gather its many forces to define that intermediate level.  Perhaps an academic on the list should organise a LISP conference on it.  The language experts should gather pen and paper for a new standard that sets LISP ahead again.  Or perhaps, since I believe that the original Human Interface Guidelines that lead to it have not been surpassed by cocoa and osx, all we need to do is adopt quickdraw lisp and cocoa-ise it.  It seems to me that someone who knows cocoa and carbon should just change traps to something in cocoa  that works.
> 

Quickdraw is dead. Cocoa is doing pretty well these days especially because of iPhones and perhaps now the iPad. MCL is a nice legacy tool. It is time to let go.

> The danger otherwise is that we merely build planned obsolescence into our applications, rather than isolate it in a layer of our applications, which are otherwise conducted in LISP rather than java, carbon, or cocoa or xml...   all of which will have and deserve much shorter lifespans.


I do not want to go here but the entire Lisp versus other kinds of discussion, e.g., S-expressions versus XML is just a waste of time. The landscape of computation has changed for good. We have to deal with it.

Alex


Prof. Alexander Repenning

University of Colorado
Computer Science Department
Boulder, CO 80309-430

vCard: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/AlexanderRepenning.vcf


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