Things to do before GUI-developers can start their work

>>>>> "CY" == C Y <smustudent1@yahoo.com> writes:

    CY> --- Raymond Toy <toy@rtp.ericsson.se> wrote:
    >> >>>>> "CY" == C Y <smustudent1@yahoo.com> writes:
    >> 
    CY> this issue.  Also, communication mechansims between processes
    >> are
    CY> different on different platforms - on Linux it's pipes for
    >> example, but
    CY> IIRC Windows cannot handle them, at least not in the same
    >> way.  I
    >> 
    >> Sockets.  Every system we currently support and probably will support
    >> has sockets because every system has a web browser. :-)

    CY> Um.  Hmm.  OK, I don't know much about those.  How hard is it to
    CY> program for them in lisp?

Neither do I.  There is no standardized socket interface so you'll
either have to get some socket library that runs on the supported
systems or make such a socket library for maxima.

    CY> The reason I like the idea of everything running in one image is it
    CY> allows a Lisp based GUI to talk to the Maxima system at basically every
    CY> level, since all the information is accessible to it by default.  I'm
    CY> not sure if such a setup would require threads though - quite possibly
    CY> it would to be usable.  I suppose that limits the native lisp idea to
    CY> CMUCL and SBCL currently, which is not so good.

And CMUCL/SBCL only has threads on x86.  No threads anywhere else.

Another alternative GUI might be McCLIM, which is entirely in Lisp (I
think).  My understanding is that you could then have a nice display
and also be able to use the mouse to select various parts of the
output and paste it back in.

But, of course, no such system exists today.  But McCLIM supports such
things.

Ray

P.S.  McCLIM makes heavy use of CLOS and gray-streams, so gcl might
may not be able to compile it at all.  And clisp may be unusably slow
with McCLIM.  This might not be a great alternative.