ANNOUNCE - graphics package

[Peter-Henry Mander]

Hi Gurus,

GUI is one subject that seems to generate a lot of discussion here! :-)

I'd like to apply Occam's razor, and try to define the absolute minimum basic characteristics that widgets must have to enable more sophisiticated and specialised widgets to be created as an additional layer of s/w over the basic widget set.

The parent-child-sibling organisation of Xwindow maps neatly into processes. If ex11 can become a concurrent set of loosly coupled Xwindows mapped as processes, I reckon that designing new widgets will become easy enough not to require a huge library if canned widgets that we generally see in most windowing environments.

True, some commonly expected widgets need to be supplied, but I'd be disappointed if ex11 becomes tightly coupled to a set of widgets.

Pete

-- 
"The Tao of Programming
 flows far away 
 and returns 
 on the wind of morning."