Xfig

["merry::satchell"@hermes.dra.hmg.gb]

I have used xfig. Once. If you want to set up a vector oriented drawing
package, why not write it entirely in guile with widget bindings? Then you
don't need to worry about smobification at all.

I have a very special purpose drawing editor called dxcedit, which 
is written purely in guile, with motif widgets, for SFQ circuit layouts. 
The name comes from the dxc file format that it reads and writes natively,
which is used by some of the SUNY tools. Anyhow, despite being entirely
written in guile, interactive performance is just fine, thanks to a bit
of care in the expose procedures to avoid excessive garbage generation,
and some optimisations. The main one is choosing a data structure for the
objects to be drawn that includes a bounding box, so the expose procedure
can entirely ignore the object if it is outside the expose region.

If this is interesting feel free to mail me off list (or on).

I think the complaints about guile performance should be seen in context;
interactive use for small scale CAD is pushing the boundaries of what 
people expect a scripting language to be good for. Personally
I have no problems with the performance already, even in stock guile 1.3!

Julian Satchell
{who expects to be flamed for being the only happy guile customer on earth}
{The above comments are in a personal capacity.}