Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ico!auto-trol!marbru
From: marbru@auto-trol.UUCP (Martin Brunecky)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: User Interface Generation Tools
Message-ID: <320@auto-trol.UUCP>
Date: 10 Oct 89 14:38:22 GMT
References: <8910061259.AA06690@ford-prefect.ics.com.ics.com>
Reply-To: ncar!ico!auto-trol!marbru (Martin Brunecky)
Organization: Auto-trol Technology, Denver
Lines: 36

In article <8910061259.AA06690@ford-prefect.ics.com.ics.com> david@ics.COM writes:
>
>UIL (both the DEC and the Motif flavors) does allow the user to add
>user-defined widgets.  There is a fair amount of overhead in describing
>exactly which arguments, etc., the widget can take.
>
	I won't call it an overhead - you just must tell the UIL
	compiller what are your resource names, and (if used)
	provide symbolic names for constants, enumerations etc.
	Not bad.

>This comment is based on close reading of the documentation. I haven't
>made sure that the supporting code works as advertised.

	It really does work as advertised. Having currently over
	10 widgets defined that way, all works O.K.

From my viewpoint, the major UIL flaws are:
- limited data semantics ( no structures, no arrays ...)
- missing interface to user-written resource converters
- missing conditional compilation (one must use C preprocessor explicitly)

I can imagine anybody who used UIL can come up with at least 3 suggestions
similar to my ones, and it may be an interesting contribution to those
DEC and OSF/Motif guys working on UIL enhancements.

However, my feeling is, that UIL is not the right solution. IF our systems
had DYNAMIC (RUNTIME) BINDING (see OS-2 or Apollo Aegis), we could create
the "UIL" using standard languages: C or C++, and still have all the benefits 
of separate user interface definition (without having to invent, stabilize
and God forbid standardize a completely new language).
-- 
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Martin Brunecky, Auto-trol Technology Corporation,
12500 North Washington Street, Denver, CO-80241-2404
(303) 252-2499                                        ncar!ico!auto-trol!marbru