SilkScript example

[Mike McDonald]

>To: LispOS <lispos@math.gatech.edu>
>Subject: SilkScript example
>Date: Thu, 01 May 1997 16:19:10 -0700
>From: Kelly Murray <kem@franz.com>
>
>
>OK, I know it's a trivial example, but I installed it on our server,
>and you can run it by accessing http://www.franz.com/demo
>
>-kelly
>

  The problem with using a web browser as the only front end to a
machine is that it is page oriented. Let's take your example of
running a single stepper via a browser. I'm at some point in single
stepping thru my code. So I have some amount of output displayed on my
browser, along with the debugger controls. So I hit the "step" button.
That request gets sent to the LispM, which interprets it, steps the
programs, captures the output, and sends an ENTIRE new page for my
browser to display, almost all (except the last line!) is a repeat of
what's already being displayed. It's that lack of incremental update
that makes a browser a lousy windowing system. It's just not fine
grained enough. For lots and lots of things, it's not needed. But some
things do work better with that fine grained interaction. (Imagine
implementing an editor this way. Everytime you hit a keystroke, you'd
have to copy the whole file back up to the browser just to insert one
character!)

  Now, for apps that don't require a high degree of interaction (maybe
the debugger qualifies?), it'd be nice to be able to access them from
a browser too. I think an approach like Franz took to support those
chemistry guys might be a viable approach to this. (Franz made some
mods to their implementation of CLIM so that it could also generate
HTLM and GIFs for this molecular modeling program. It's on the web
someplace but I don't remember what the URL is.)

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com