Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!rochester!cornell!blandy
From: blandy@lakshmi.cs.cornell.edu (Jim Blandy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Resources, Take 3
Message-ID: <18138@cornell.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 88 19:20:18 GMT
References: <8806052331.AA28897@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: nobody@cornell.UUCP
Reply-To: blandy@lakshmi (Jim Blandy)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY
Lines: 45

In article <8806052331.AA28897@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
>
>	As you all know, My big project right now is the implementation
>of resources ...

>	The *right* way to do it is to essentially have a relatively 
>simple storage format, and then make the entire system object oriented.
>So here is my *new* idea on the subject:

	[ ... description of standard code resources which convert one type of
	  resource to another ... ]

That is a completely fantastic idea, Matt.  I'd steal your brain in a
second, if I could use it.

It's similar to the way 'make' can assume how to get a .o file from a
.c file without being specific to C or whatever.

>(1)	What if I want to implement a system-default window?  ...

	[ ... stuff on shared resources and things, looking a bit
	  like a solicitation of suggestions :-) ...]

>						-Matt


The way I see it, the conversion resources take a resource of one type
and make a new resource of the asked-for type.  So if this converter
makes a Window out of a shared NewWindow, the Window so created is
shared too; it's a genuine resource, just like anything else.

You're maintaining a "shared resources currently in memory" list, so
put this new Window resource on the list; the next person that asks
for it finds the already-opened window.

In the general case: if a shared wombat_description is turned into a
wombat by some conversion resource (called wombat_description.wombat),
then that new wombat is also a shared resource, to be added to the
"shared resources in memory" list; other programs calling
GetResource() for that same wombat will be given the same value the
first one did.

(PS - where can I get a copy of MDE, and the Fred Fish listings?)
Jim Blandy - blandy@crnlcs.bitnet
"insects were insects when man was just a burbling whatsit."  - archie