(Sorry for the late reply.)
I agree with your point about the GUI toolkit being Pop's Achilles heel. I've
sometimes (briefly) wondered whether a useful approach would be to develop
an API implemented with calls to a Java library (say java.awt). Then platform
by platform, the Pop-11 API could be implemented with OS specific calls.
Efficiency might be a problem, and interprocess communication with the JVM
would be required.
Luc (lucb@ telus.net)
> 9. Usable GUI toolkit
>
> The X-toolkit is Poplog's Achilles heel IHMO. This project would
> aim to provide a GUI toolkit that was mainly implemented in Pop11
> and deriving all the obvious benefits as a result e.g. does not
> seg fault, require brain the size of planet to write
> "hello world",
> a reinforced library shelf for the flatulent tomes that
> tell you how clever you are for using the X-toolkit etc etc.
>
> I would imagine this project would work bottom-up, defining and
> then implementing useful APIs for windowing systems such
> as X-windows,
> and Windows itself, 3-D systems such as OpenGL, and
> animation systems
> such as Quicktime. Once this work had been done, it
> would then be
> a good time to tackle the unification - because only at
> this stage
> would it be clear which APIs had been tackled effectively.
>
> The main benefit of working this way would be that each API would
> itself be a valuable piece of work in itself, so the
> success of this
> project would not be all or nothing.
>
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