[plt-scheme] Planned changes for PLT Scheme 4.0

On Nov 19, 2007 12:13 PM, Ivanyi Peter <pivanyi at freemail.hu> wrote:
>
> I think there is a big difference between our views. I do
> not want a new "research project", or a project at all. I simply would like
> to have a modern, nice look with MzScheme.

I think many people share this view.

>From what I understand MrEd relies on a highly customised version of
wxWindows.  I don't think it would be easy to port to the new version
of wxWindows.  I don't think it would be worth it, either.  Two
reasons:

 - you don't want to build your towers of complexity in C++ -- you
want them in Scheme (where hopefully the towers will be simpler)
 - there are simpler libraries you can interface to that do most of
the work in a cross platform manner

I base this reasoning on the 'Shoes' project in Ruby:

  http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/shoes/

There is relatively little code behind it (a few thousand lines of C
IIRC).  It relies on Pango and Cairo for most of the rendering -- with
some OS specific code for widget controls.  Pango and Cairo are C
libraries, so fairly easy to bind (no templates, no name mangling,
memory handling is explicit).  The OS libraries likewise.

HTH,
N.