Since everybody else is doing so I guess I should introduce myself; I'm
Duncan from the UK. I started learning Lisp about 2 years ago, having
intended to for a long time prior to that. I'm in the 'old fogey'
competition too I guess, being a child of the 60's (but only just ;-)
As a day job I'm employed as a Java developer, mainly concentrating on
webapps.
In terms of Lisp projects, I am responsible for the Beagle back end
for McCLIM (not that I've been progressing much in that area; for
reasons that should become apparent below).
>>> On 12/13/05, Jean-François Brouillet < verec at mac.com > wrote:
>> As I see it, there is much speaking for Ltk. I haven't actually
>> used it, but Tk is working pretty much everywhere, and what I've
>> understood from cll reports is that it uses a socket/server approach,
>> which is rather portable, and people seem to like it.
>>> I'd like to say McCLIM, but there is a bit more starting distance
>> required for that than for a Tk-based approach, I believe.
CLIM is pretty heavy-weight, and difficult to get your head around
in several ways. I don't believe its something you can pick up and
run with in just a couple of days, or even possibly in a few weeks
(although with the right documentation I think the model can be
understood pretty quickly).
That said, the benefit of a 'user interface manager' type GUI rather
than 'just' an API onto a widget set could be huge (particularly in
terms of portability).
I found a few things that were awkward in CLIM (and a couple in McCLIM
that are not really anything to do with CLIM) when writing the Beagle
back end. Hunting through the different archives there's some
explanation as to why in posts by Scott McKay (the main developer on
CLIM originally and author / editor of the CLIM II spec). He suggested
in one post that given the time a good approach would be to convert
DUIM from Dylan into CL and use that as a basis for a new GUI toolkit.
DUIM has the logical separation of CLIM done better (since it's the
third generation of the CLIM idea).
I've started down this path, and am about 75% of the way to a 'first-
draft' of a Lisp version of DUIM (no back end yet!).
[I'm calling it a first draft because the code is a line-for-line
conversion of the Dylan code, even going so far as to create specific
macros to enable to definition of objects in a Dylan style. I'd like
to get rid of some of this an make it more 'Lispy' before release.]
>
> I've used Ltk for a project and I like it quite a bit. The source is
> easy to understand, and the documentation is a suitable Gardeners
> project.
> In the break between college semesters I was planning on
> reimplementing the standard Tk demo program in Ltk for examples.
> (Folks using Ruby-Tk don't even bother to translate the documentation
> into English, just this program.)
>
> I have managed to bundle and/or run applications with Ltk on Windows,
> Linux and OS X.
> The only requirement is a Tcl/Tk binary. Tclkit works, which means
> all requirements can be included in one (small) download.
>
> McCLIM works well on Mac and Linux, but the most mature backend is the
> CLX backend. A dependency on X kills hopes of Windows use (for
> beginners).
CLIM is *supposed* to target 'abstract' panes, supposedly allowing
apps to run on different platforms unchanged (and taking on the
look and feel of the underlying platform). Of course, for this to work
on Windows it'd need somebody to write a Windows back end, and this is
no small task (though it is getting easier I think as more back ends
are developed).
> The toolkit has a very lispy design, but is somewhat unusual in
> contrast to mainstream GUIs. That, more than its stability or work
> required, is a stumbling block for beginners.
I think this is mainly because of a lack of decent documentation. What
documentation there is seems to either be in the form of specifications,
or very brief howto type documents. I suspect if this were corrected
few developers would have problems understanding the CLIM model, or
developing apps targeted at the CLIM API.
Anyhow, apart from GUI stuff I'm interested in a libre integrated
development environment (more like LispWorks than Emacs + SLIME, though
there's nothing wrong with that combo), integration between Lisp and
GP platforms / OSes and application delivery.
I think that's long enough for a first mail, longer than I intended...
apologies for that but I do tend to ramble.
-Duncan
>
> --Dwight
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