Which of the following paradigms would people most like to see in a Mac lisp IDE ? (As used below, the term "window" means what [X]Emacs would call a "frame", i.e., a window-system window, and the term "view" means about what [X]Emacs would call a "window": some portion of a window-system window used to present a buffer and associated info (modeline, etc.)).
a) traditional Mac/Cocoa behavior, where there's typically a 1:1 relationship between a buffer and a window and usually a single view per window; the distinction between a buffer/view/window is often nearly (and sometimes completely) blurred.
b) traditional [X]Emacs behavior, where buffers can be presented in arbitrary views in arbitrary windows.
c) (a) and (b) aren't mutually exclusive: the two paradigms can be integrated in an intuitive, usable fashion (perhaps by noting that (a)'s pretty much a proper subset of (b)). This is an essay question.
d) both (a) and (b) are worth supporting, but they don't mix too well: a global preference should give the user a choice between (a) and (b).
e) none of the above
I personally lean towards (c), but I'm still working on the essay question. I think that it's fair to say that (a)'s simpler to fit into the Cocoa document-based application model, but I think that that model's general enough to support (b) as well.
Gary Byers gb@clozure.com