[ Thanks to LinuxDevices.com for this link.
]
“Glue layers can greatly simplify the porting of applications
from one software environment to another. The concept of a
“glue layer” becomes especially practical when there is a large
body of already-debugged application software, and it’s not
desireable to recode that software to a new, different programming
interface.“
“This is especially common with graphical applications because,
once painstakenly coded, no one wants to reinvest the effort to
overcome all the “off-by-one” problems and other issues associated
with graphical systems interfaces. In addition, a well-designed
large body of software — including graphical “stacks” which
include framebuffer code, windowing systems, widget sets, and
applications software — needs to use layered software techniques
in order to achieve code and component independence.”
“Because the Microwindows Project is very well architected by
splitting it’s own functionality into well defined, separate
components, it is fairly easy to write a glue layer that allows a
major component of Microwindows to talk with a new or unknown
programming interface.”