Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!ginosko!usc!snorkelwacker!think!kulla!barmar
From: barmar@kulla (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Developing over CLX
Message-ID: <31035@news.Think.COM>
Date: 25 Oct 89 04:32:53 GMT
References: <1989Oct24.183645.9930@wucs1.wustl.edu>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Distribution: na
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 30

In article <1989Oct24.183645.9930@wucs1.wustl.edu> sbc@wucs1.wustl.edu (Steve B Cousins) writes:
>Is it possible/reasonable/a good idea to develop CL appliations over
>CLX?  In particular, if I had a Sun running Franz lisp with CLX, and
>another workstation running an X server (shouldn't that be client?), could the
>remote site be set up to edit and test code, or is CLX designed mainly
>as a delivery vehicle for applications?

I don't understand.  How would you deliver those applications without
developing them?  Are you asking whether it's reasonable to use CLX all by
itself rather than using a higher level package that is built on top of
CLX?  I'd say that using bare CLX would be pretty tough, but there aren't
many available alternatives.  You'd have to develop all your own routines
for things like menus.  Just as most X programmers in C don't use Xlib all
by itself, Lisp programmers also need toolkits and widget libraries.  Xerox
has developed a high level Lisp interface to the C toolkits, and Lucid,
Symbolics and ILA are working on a Common Lisp Interface Manager (CLIM)
that implements object-oriented I/O routines that they plan to propose as a
standard.

>Does/can CLX use CLOS in a similar way?

CLX doesn't use CLOS; it only needs structures.  There's a package called
CLUE (Common Lisp User Environment), which is a simple, object-oriented
toolkit library that uses CLOS.  It provides some basic window classes,
some stream I/O facilities, and a few other utilities.  It's still pretty
low level (it's a toolkit, but not a widget library).
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
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