[comp.sys.amiga] IPC --- what are our goals?

peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (03/16/88)

[We finally have comp.sys.amiga.tech!]

Ok, the question I'd like to put before the meeting (:->) is:

	What are we trying to accomplish?

I can see a number of goals...

	1) Make the Mac look bad and make us look good.

	Semi-smiley. The original IPC message was about something to compete
with the Mac Hypercard software. Personally I think that the best thing we
could do for this would be to come up with an IFF format for objects in
drafting and modelling programs. Then IFF will finally be a full superset
of Mac clips.

	2) Implement a hypertext on the Amiga.

	Let's see what Xanadu looks like.

	3) Implement an object/message system based on Amiga messages.

	Well, it won't be a real object/message system, since we're not
sending messages to the objects... but instead sending the objects in
messages to the servers. But that's a good metaphor for the system. If
this is the case it's gonna be a lot of work.

	4) Implement a new channel for information transfer.

	Clipboards and pipes do this fine, and there are already
programs that use them. A library making clips easier to work with,
or a CLIP: device to allow programs to talk to clips via DOS, would
help a lot. They're slow because of the copying overhead, but what the
hell...

	5) Implement a new channel for information transfer that's more
	   efficient than clips or pipes.

	This doesn't require anything near as complex a setup as we're
heading towards. Just defining a message format and a way to reliably hook
into the ports. Matt can turn it into a library for us, and I can irritate
the hell out of everyone :->.
-- 
-- a clone of Peter (have you hugged your wolf today) da Silva  `-_-'
-- normally  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter                U
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.