Re: [Fresco-devel] Questions

Hi Michael,

michael wrote:

> 1. Rather than taking the traditional GUI approach of providing simple 
> GUI Toolkits has a Component oriented approach been considered? i.e. 
> providing a component architecture (and wiring standards) in which 
> applications can be developed?

that's what Fresco is all about indeed. Widgets and other scene graph
citizens are constructed from building blocks implemented in a variety
of components that may or may not be loaded / loadable on any given
platform.

> 2. a) What version of CORBA are we talking about ?

2.3

>    b) If Fresco is already going to be Component oriented why adopt the 
> CORBA Component Model (CCM)?

why ? Or why not ? Up to now we havn't been talking about CCM yet. In fact,
we are now considering to get rid of CORBA, at least in areas where it
is being used heavily now, such as inside the scene graph. We believe it
doesn't belong there, as it slows down traffic (we are talking about
scene graph traversals that should ideally even be pushed right into
the hardware).

> 3. Have you consider working Mono (www.go-mono.com) to provide support 
> for language neutrality i.e. supporting the .NET development framework?  

No, right now CORBA provides language transparency for us.

> (this would open Fresco up to a large number of applications in due time 
> i.e. the next generation of Gnome applications could potentially all run 
> under Fresco without modification).

I disagree. Whatever middleware you choose, it's just the vehicle the
Fresco-specific programming model (whatever that may be) is based on.
Applications don't get automagically 'fresco enabled'.
Of course, all kinds of adaptors are imaginable, but the real fresco
application will want to construct its GUI the 'fresco way' in order
to take full advantage of all the nice features.

Anyways, my answers only cover the current state of affairs, which is,
as it stands, a matter of debatte. Feel free to critizise and suggest
changes. To learn more about the current architecture please look
through everything you can find on fresco's website, from its wiki
to the papers / presentations that have been written.

Regards,
		Stefan