Make LispM code FREE (fwd)

[Gavin E. Gleason]

Damond Walker writes:
 > 
 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Dave Mason <dmason@scs.Ryerson.CA>
 > To: Lisp OS project <lispos@math.gatech.edu>
 > Date: Tuesday, March 31, 1998 9:48 AM
 > Subject: Re: Make LispM code FREE (fwd)
 > 
 > 
 > >Rainer Joswig writes:
 > >> Hmm, isn't the Lisp Machine source really ancient?
 > >> Before 1980? Before Common Lisp? Written for
 > >> special hardware? Based on MacLisp (-> Lisp Machine Lisp)?
 > >>
 > >> What would you do with it?
 > >
 > >Study it?  Extract snippets of code worth manually translating to
 > >Scheme or CL?  Both seem useful to me.
 > >
 > 
 > 
 >     Yeah, why create from scratch when there is a load of code out there
 > waiting to be pulled in or learned from.....?
 >     Anyone have any experience with CLX under Allegro CL?  Got it working
 > last night mostly (hell, it seems to work anyway) -- would it be a *bad*
 > thing to base some GUI stuff on CLX?
 > 
 >                     Damond
 > 

I don't seem to have as big a problem with X as some of the people on
this list.  To me it seems like a reasonble low level protocol for
drawing information to the screen.  One interesting thing to note is
that one of the objectives in the GNU manifesto was to have an X
server writen in lisp. 
	Beware though, clx is basically just lisp bindings to X.  It
certainly won't be easy to write any apps that look good directly in
CLX.  Garnet has some nice higher level abstractions for CLX but you
will have to play with the code to get it to work (I tried to take
over maintanence of garnet, but no one ever wrote me back???).  I've
heard rumors of CLIM being released for free by Franz.  If this is
true, CLIM would be much preferable as a substrate, as it is in wider
use, and is based on CLOS instead of a seperate object system like
garnet.  

<monolog>	
	It seems to me in a world of GUI, that one of the best things
that could further the LispOS ideals would be to develop a free CLIM.
This would alow us to start developing applications that people would
actually use.  A CL Emacs writen with a CLIM interface for instance
(Idea shamelessly borrowed off of #:Erik Naggum), would be far more
usefull and flexible then XEmacs, and with a elisp compatibility
package could server to produce a "real" development environment for
CL.  
	So how come there is so little interest in free CLIM???
</monolog>		
		Gavin E. Gleason