ex11, plotting and Cairo ...

[Joe Armstrong (AL/EAB)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED
> [mailto:owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED]On Behalf Of Peter-Henry
> Mander
> Sent: den 20 juli 2005 15:53
> To: Vlad Dumitrescu
> Cc: Erlang Questions
> Subject: Re: ex11, plotting and Cairo ...
> 
> 
> Hi Vlad,
> 
> Simplified portable X server sounds good to me, it would be 
> very useful
> to me as a stand-alone product in itself! If there's a Open 
> Source one,
> even better! Cygwin X server has a bit too much baggage to be called
> simple. Xming (http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Xming) looks like 
> it fits the
> bill, but I'm hitting a wall with it.
> 
> I'm not sure I grasp the meaning of your question. The whole 
> idea is to
> avoid reinvention by using X11. Joe is very keen to make it drop dead
> gorgeous, but he's invented ex11 which to my mind is "good enough" and
> it may become the enemy of his better PDF/PS GUI.
> 
> Sorry Joe, I know what you'd like to see since I'm an ex-typography
> student and I appreciate your aesthetic inclination, but the 
> concurrency
> model and thin layers is what I want above the kerning, antialiasing
> etc.

But the primitives are the same! - suppose I have a primitive

	draw(Win, character, X, Y, font, glyfNumber)

Which draws a particular Glyf at a X, Y then I get kerning by a "better" computation
of where X and Y are - a stupid algorithm just takes the bounding box width to compute
where the next character should go.

So given a the same set of primitives we can have quick and dirty or beautiful
formatting, still with a decent concurrency model and decent layering

/Joe



> 
> Pete.
> 
> On Wed, 2005-07-20 at 13:48 +0200, Vlad Dumitrescu wrote:
> > From: "Peter-Henry Mander" <erlang@REDACTED>
> > > Considering this, why not attack the MS-Windows GDI 
> directly in Erlang,
> > > maybe with a k.i.s.s. C driver to ease the connection?
> > 
> > Easiest would be to write a graphics server and talk with 
> it via a socket. I 
> > think someone said earlier he had been giving it a try. 
> This would actually 
> > be a simplified X server, and could be made portable too.
> > 
> > Question is: should the protocol be compatible with X? If 
> yes, is there a 
> > danger[*] that this server will become an alternative X 
> server? If no, could 
> > it be mapped onto X?
> > 
> > [*] in the meaning that it would mean to reinvent a lot of wheels...
> > 
> > regards,
> > Vlad
> > 
> > 
> > 
> -- 
> "The Tao of Programming
>  flows far away 
>  and returns 
>  on the wind of morning."
> 
> 
> 
>