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9:53:13
lukego
Hey are there some good answers to the question, "Why (Mc)CLIM?" I think that I started off interested in presentation-based interfaces in general, then to McCLIM as the most substantial open source implementation, and now it actually seems less about CLIM per se and more about just an interesting framework that other people are actively hacking on together.
9:54:22
lukego
I mean, I suspect it could be technically easier to do my own work just starting from scratch with an ad-hoc geometry library and e.g. output to SVG, but the attraction of McCLIM is the opportunity to collaborate with your good selves and build something better than what the sum of random private hacks would be
9:55:52
lukego
CLIM itself I'm not sure how I feel about... is it actually a good spec? I don't know, it's pretty elaborate, I don't really know how to evaluate it compared with whatever else people use these days.
9:56:33
lukego
but maybe that is secondary if it's a common project for various people doing visual stuff with Lisp to use as a point of collaboration
9:57:06
Duuqnd
I'm currently working on a game and these tools are so that non-programmers can quickly make some basic things without worrying about poking around in source code.
9:59:46
jackdaniel
the spec is good (it has flaws) in a sense that it accumulates needs for various gui writing paradigms;; implementing it imo will empower lisp programmers to use it as a driver for lisp applications disregarding of the type
10:01:44
jackdaniel
presentation based systems (or command driven interfaces) are a novel option, not the /only way to use it/ as you have certainly noticed
10:03:57
jackdaniel
so my own answer to "Why (Mc)CLIM?" would be - because it is complete with many iterations based on user feedback
12:03:34
lukego
I wonder if we need a little CLIM mini-conference to get a better idea of what's going on and who's doing what
12:25:09
lukego
or are there such things? I know there have been various low-key online lisp meetups this past year or so
13:17:39
beach
A "meeting" would be a better forum I think. A "conference" would be mostly a bunch of talks. No?
14:28:43
lukego
and maybe there would be a better medium too e.g. github issues somewhere just tracking what people are hacking on with some links/screenshots. I dunno, just have a sense that there's a community here that's mostly invisible
14:29:28
lukego
for example the graphviz layout hack is really interesting and relevant to me but it's only by chance that I saw it mentioned by someone and could easily lose track of it
14:30:48
lukego
I guess whatever a mcclim-users mailing list would look like in the post-mailing-lists world of 2021
14:37:33
splittist
It may well be that CLIM is like CL itself, with a constellation of non-interacting collections of users/programmers. For all we know the orbital sander design industry runs entirely on CLIM applications. We just never see those folks; and vice versa.