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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: [tech pondering] Tck/Tk = portability in GUI?
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Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 17:31:28 GMT
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Bruce Stephens (stephens@math.ruu.nl) wrote:
> Tcl/Tk aren't perfect, but I'm not suggesting we write much in them.
> I'm suggesting we hack all the non-portable I/O bits out of JZip or
> Zip, and add hooks and things so that it provides suitable
> functionality available from Tcl scripts.  The speed of Tcl scripts is
> pretty low, but experience suggests that's not important for this kind
> of situation: the Z-code interpretation is done in C, leaving Tcl/Tk
> to provide a nice interface.

This could be done. (ZIP is already nicely partitioned into an engine and 
an IO module.)

I would point out, however, that the concept of "a nice interface" is not
portable. A Z-machine interpreter interface acceptable in X is not
acceptable on the Mac, and vice versa. (Remember, I've written both.) So
this whole concept is chasing a chimera, to some extent. 

The same is true for a "nice" Inform interface. Standardizing an 
interface to Inform across many platforms would pretty much be disastrous 
on all of them.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
