From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ac39a12d5faf5b14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-15 20:39:37 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!195.64.68.27!newsgate.cistron.nl!newsfeed.online.be!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Development process in the Ada community Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:53:34 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3CB46975.90408@snafu.de> <3CB516E1.9030008@snafu.de> <3CB583D6.9000104@worldnet.att.net> <4519e058.0204111009.609078dc@posting.google.com> <3CB5D550.4000201@snafu.de> <3CB60E57.9090306@telepath.com> <4519e058.0204150628.548b23e8@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1018893215 12148 136.170.200.133 (15 Apr 2002 17:53:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Apr 2002 17:53:35 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22582 Date: 2002-04-15T17:53:35+00:00 List-Id: "Ted Dennison" wrote in message news:4519e058.0204150628.548b23e8@posting.google.com... > > Since that's essentially what Gtk is, what precisely would be the > advantage of doing it ourselves rather than leveraging off of the Gtk > work like the GtkAda folk have done? > I wouldn't be opposed to declaring GtkAda the annointed answer - with some eye toward extending its capabilities to be more useful while remaining portable. What are the odds we'd get the vendors to agree that this was The Moving Forward Plan? I think I had something else in mind - GtkAda does store the description of a GUI in XML, but ultimately it generates code that is compiled/linked for a given platform. What if there was an engine that interpreted an XML description of a GUI and you blipped XML text back and forth between the engine and the Ada program by some convention? Interpreting the XML at runtime has a lot of advantages and if the connection between the engine and your Ada program was over TCP/IP, your apps automatically work over the net. Its not as if you can't do this now by rolling-your-own & working with some existing things, but why couldn't there be a "conventional answer"? Something akin to this might make a better answer for a number of reasons. One of which is that an XML based solution would reduce to a relatively simple interface for the program that would mean a vendor could be "compliant" with it without having to do a lot of work. The other is that on the engine side of it, vendors can distinguish themselves with entirely different looks-and-feels if this seems desirable. In a sense, it would let the Ada developer develop as if there were a standard GUI, without actually needing there to *be* one. IIRC, Mozilla or someone out there was working on a "standard" XML markup for GUI descriptions. (Maybe someone can post a link? I seem to have lost track of it) Starting from here and defining a communication mechanism and a DOM and you're just about there. Then all you have is the hard part of generating the XML GUI engine that isn't a gross resource hog. :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com