Subject: COOL design document

From: Arthur van Hoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 91 15:14:01 BST

Hi Folks,

We are sending you a PostScript document containing a proposal for the
development of Cool.  The document is a draft.  We hope that with your
help and comments it can be refined into an agreed specification for
Cool over the next month or so.  What we would like is some very rapid
top-of-the-head feedback to help us move along.  The document contains
code but it is only illustrative, we're not proposing that you use it,
just that you need something like it. It is a starting point for 
technical email discussion but it is also there to provide topics for 
our next meeting.

You will find a detailed discussion of the following topics 
together with a proposed implementation (source included):
	- parent scope and container hierarchy
	- symbolic names
	- 'Send' primitive
	- client communication and application structure
	- resources 
	- resource classes and script classes
	- persistence 
	- cloning and renewing
	- saving and loading

It has to be detailed because the problems are in the details.  
We believe that if you like this stuff it can be used as the basis 
for a full implementation of Cool.

The summary section contains a list of technical problems which still
have to be overcome.  Guidance from you as to these would be
appreciated. I am doing some more work on multi page windows and 
interactive editing. These topics will be discussed in future versions
of the document.

Comments over the next week or so would be greatly appreciated. Please
mail them to [email-masked].

Have fun,

-- 

	Arthur van Hoff 		     [email-masked]

	The Turing Institute
	36 North Hannover street, Glasgow G1 2AD, +44 41 5526400
	Beltstraat 94a, 7512 AB Enschede, Holland, +31 53 324366