Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)
Subject: Re: LISP and X-Windows
Message-ID: <1994Sep12.110334.26845@wavehh.hanse.de>
Keywords: clim, clx, ew, clio, clue, garnet
Organization: The Internet
References: <34pog5$lss@hpsystem1.informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 94 11:03:34 GMT
Lines: 49

widmann@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Norbert Widmann) writes:

>I am a beginning LISP programmer using clisp on a Linux PC. I am 
>trying to use X for displaying some (very simple) graphics and
>animations.

>I have clx for clisp and can get the demos working. But I somehow
>can't get my own programms work. Besides I really hate XLib and
>don't care anything about graphic-contexts, drawables and functions
>with 120 parameters.

[...]

>If someone could give me some assistance I would try to
>write it myself, but right now I am really frustrated with
>programming at XLib Level.

The only free Common Lisp GUI lib that is high-level and easy to
compile on most lisps is Garnet. I found Garnet on clisp too slow to
be useful for anything other than learning about GUI programming. BTW,
is is *great* for learning about GUI programming.

Otherwise I would suggest to use one of the scheme dialects that
supports GUIs. Elk (uses native X11-Widgets) and STk (uses
tcl/Tk-widgets) come in mind. 

However, these litte schemes are no native compilers and you may run
into speed difficulties when doing 'real' data processing. But GUI
applications written in them are not too slow. The difference to
clisp/garnet is that Elk and STk drive a widgets system written in C,
where garnet is written in Lisp all over.

CMU-CL may be coupled with CLM - a Motif binding -, although I found
this not too friendly (Just had a look into it). CMU-CL runs on
SPARC/SunOS-4.1.x and HP-UX-9 only.

The README file from gcl states they plan to have a high-level GUI
interface, either tcl/Tk-based or something in the CLIM
direction. Sounds worth waiting for (even better - contributing to it
:-), although I find the Tk approach a bit too limited (and not too
good integrated with scheme's data types in the case of STk) and fear
the CLIM approach for it's ressource requirements (could stay with
garnet then).

Martin
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Martin.Cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de, Fax. +49 40 5228536, German language accepted
 No guarantee for anything. Anyway, this posting is probably produced by one 
 of my cats stepping on the keys. No, I don't have an infinite number of cats.
