Re: Proposed standard GUI: Update 1

[Tom Moran <tmoran@bix.com>]

As developers of Claw, we would be interested in cooperation for the
creation of a standard Ada GUI.  We've looked a bit at the issues
involved, and concluded that an abstraction layer higher than the
current Claw bindings would be required.

Therefore, we don't think that the use of Claw as it is currently
designed would be appropriate for this task.

On the other hand, an interface designed following the same
principles as Claw (see our Tri-Ada '97 paper at www.rrsoftware.com
for details) would be an admirable goal.  We have no objection to
"borrowing" those principles for a new design.  In any case, we
think any such GUI interface should be designed using Ada 95 for
maximum portability, and most of the products on your list were not
designed for Ada 95.  That makes Claw one of the best choices for a
starting point.

We have kept Claw proprietary to this point mainly because we felt
that we needed to keep control over its evolution in order to keep a
common vision for its design.  Once the binding is mature enough
that frequent enhancements are no longer needed, we intend to look
at the possibility of making some or all of it public.

It is difficult to hide the underlying OS API and at the same time
create programs which appear to users to have the 'style' of a
particular OS.  For some users, this doesn't matter.  But for anyone
whose applications are to be used by ordinary end-users as opposed
to the developers themselves, this is a requirement.  We've been
made even more aware of this with the Claw GUI builder program,
where some of the most common complaints from early testers were
about missing Windows-specific features.  Claw was designed with an
emphasis on creating programs with a 'Windows style'.

It would certainly be desirable from a programmers viewpoint to have
a GUI as OS-independent as possible.  Even if conflicting goals make
perfection impossible, work in that direction could produce good,
useful products for the short term, and valuable conceptual
understandings for the long term.  We think it's reasonable to
strive toward such a goal.

Randy Brukardt
Tom Moran