Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpcc05!hpdmd48!muyanja
From: muyanja@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (bill muyanja)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers
Message-ID: <14900022@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com>
Date: 26 Jan 91 20:50:03 GMT
References: <13985@ganymede.inmos.co.uk>
Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID
Lines: 18

>o   How do I connect multiple programs through pipes in the icon
>    world?

Pipes are just one form of interprocess communication.  Various GUIs (mostly 
on PCs) are already evolving sophisticated IPC protocols that preserve
the software tools approach of Unix in an icon world.  In fact, these
IPCs, with their so-called "hot-link" metaphor, may be one solution
to the problem of distributed computing in a heterogeneous environment
without resorting to a standard Application Binary Interface across
machine architectures.

I suspect that it would be trivial, for instance, to establish communication
between an X-client on a RISC box and MS-Excel under Windows using the DDE
protocol, although I don't have the resources to try it myself.

- bill

  "Standard disclaimers apply ..."