rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) (07/03/89)
Sun has been warning users of the demise of Suntools since its Sun-2 Suntools releases in 1985. They recognized defects of machine dependence, resolution dependence, network ignorance, and kernal resource hogging of this early object-oriented graphics interface. The intended cure was the PostScript and object-oriented NeWS window system. However, since Sun was three years late in delivering this (1990 instead of 1987), both XWindows and Display Postscript with similar remedies have become defacto standards. The Suntools replacement called Open Windows (this month) provides a Suntool emulator called XView and another window system called Open Look. Both run ontop of NeWS and X11. Both are shipping in beta to developers and are displayed at trade shows.
gors@well.UUCP (Gordon Stewart) (07/03/89)
Suntools is a true event-driven winowing/User interface system,
which uses a notification scheme based on SIGNALS.
The comments about X being brain-damaged are because it is occasionally
imposible to tell who or what caused a certain event -- Its design goals
of network transparency and low network loading were a trade-off.
Neither is a RENDERING system -- Sun supports CGI and GKS, and I am
not qualified to say, but I suppose there are X-based GKS and other
rendering systems.
A note about future compatibility of Suntools and X -- t'ain't so.
SunViews and X will be "merged", but many of the low-level calls
and operations on pixrects will no longer be supported in the same
way. In short, there is no such thing as endless upward compatibility.
But, hey, that's progress. If you've seen one redwood, ... :-)
:-)
:-)
:-(
--
{apple, pacbell, hplabs, ucbvax}!well!gors
gors@well.sf.ca.us
(Doolan) | (Meyer) | (Sierchio) | (Stewart)mongo@helios (Mongo Package) (07/06/89)
In article <18220@usc.edu> annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) writes: >In article <3290@portia.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) writes: >>The distinction between Suntools and XWindows will disappear in the >>near future in a Sun product called XView. See Sun's compatibility >>package for portions of old Suntools that won't be supported (about 10%). >I hope this prediction never comes to pass. I have used Suntools, SunCore, >and X11R3 pretty extensively in the past six months. My opinions follow: > People who are relying on SunCore or SunCGI should take a look at the latest doc-sets which clearly announce that Sun will not be continuing to support either of these packages. The only 2-d "standard" left will be SunGKS. The best information that I have been able to get about SunView is this: The X11/NeWS server will be bundled with SunOS 4.1; however, SunView will also still be shipped with SunOS 4.1. This gives us the option of using a network-based window system or the smaller-and-still-faster SunView. Sun has also given the impression that the faster/better frame buffers which will be available in the future may not be driveable as "dumb" frame buffers. Exactly what this means is not clear to me, other than that it is probably unwise not to upgrade software to use the "currently trendy" graphics interface. Steve Allen These can't be the opinions of the University of California. See your Sun rep. for more details.
borg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (daniel.w.meeks) (07/06/89)
>Reply-To: gors@well.UUCP (Gordon Stewart) >Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA >... >A note about future compatibility of Suntools and X -- t'ain't so. >SunViews and X will be "merged", but many of the low-level calls >and operations on pixrects will no longer be supported in the same >way. In short, there is no such thing as endless upward compatibility. >But, hey, that's progress. If you've seen one redwood, ... :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- XView is NOT ``merged'' X and Sunview. XView is a X toolkit which looks much like Sunview. Sun is merging X and NeWS. cheers, --dwm
rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) (08/08/89)
The distinction between Suntools and XWindows will disappear in the near future in a Sun product called XView. See Sun's compatibility package for portions of old Suntools that won't be supported (about 10%).
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (08/08/89)
In article <3466@uokmax.UUCP> randy@uokmax.UUCP (Longshot) writes: | In the name of avoiding senseless arguments, | please pass this thread up if you have not | used both. Also, I would appreciate an indication of the context of your comments. Such as "I only want speed", "I really want ease of porting", "I want flexibility", etc. Knowing your attitude/bias makes it easier for others to decide how it applies to them. -- Jim Wright jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) (08/08/89)
In article <3290@portia.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) writes: > >The distinction between Suntools and XWindows will disappear in the >near future in a Sun product called XView. See Sun's compatibility >package for portions of old Suntools that won't be supported (about 10%). I hope this prediction never comes to pass. I have used Suntools, SunCore, and X11R3 pretty extensively in the past six months. My opinions follow: o Suntools -- This package includes a relatively small easy to learn set of calls that are needed to actually get a graphics application up and running. Linked executable programs appear to be the smallest of the three packages. As a consequence, given Sun's newest memory management philosophy (let quiescent programs occupy as much memory as possible so that new programs need to swap out old code to make any room for the new code to run ... a "great" way to sell memory), this means that applications start up quickly, windows pop up rapidly, and the system does not get bogged down thrashing pages to/from disk. Suntools is ideal if all you want is a small raster to load images or paint vectors. Good for highly interactive programs. o SunCore -- Built on top of sunwindows. Provides a richer set of calls to draw more complex objects with a wide variety of viewing transforms for 3d images. Somewhat slower than suntools because linked executable programs are bigger. But, if you want nice 2d & 3d viewing transforms and other sophisticated graphics package features then SunCore is the package for you. [SunGKS / SunPHIGS are also good at these operations]. o X11R3 -- Right now, at most academic institutions, this package appears to be either wholly unsupported or poorly supported. A broad knowledge of the package is required to be able to write even the simplest window program (try "hello world" in all three packages and I guarantee you will agree with this opinion ... then try 256 color pseudo color image display in all three packages). As a consequence, generalist campus computer center support organizations will find this package unwieldy. Also, while the package is available (in source code format) for free, no outside organization appears to supply expertise to back up campus consultants when they get in over their heads. This package is what I would consider ideal for training computer science hackers and people who want to get into the graphics market for fun and profit. Because it is available in source code form, modifications to the source code and recompilation are the only reasonable fix for many problems now. X11R3 is three generations into a major release of an academic product. Nevertheless, unless you have a good X11 hacker in your back pocket, I would shy away from this package for serious development work. On the other hand, if you want to spend many hours plowing through volumes of documentation then I would consider buying the O'Reilly & Associates three volume reference set on the X Window System, ftp their source code for examples to your site, and try to get their examples to work before moving onto your own project. Also take a look at xim image processing package for an example of how to handle 256 color images. On the other hand, if you want to write machine independent "C" graphics programs (that run on 32 bit machines efficiently) then you should look at X11R3. If you need to distribute image generation (the client task) from image display (the server task) over a local area network (or even over a medium speed long range network like internet) then use X11R3. If you need to generate images on one vendor's host (cray) and display them on another vendor's server (sun) then use X11R3. But, if you want to generate images and display them on them same machine (e.g. one Sun) then you better pony up a substantial amount of memory and processing capacity (4mb SUN-III/60's make good servers ... but running several substanial client tasks together with the server task on one machine can bring my 8mb SUN-III/160C to its knees). In the future, PEX (the PHIGS Extension to X) should provide 3d viewing transformations and other sophisticated graphics support. But the first public release still appears to be at least a year away. A good version (with most of the initial bugs removed) won't be available for at least two years. X consumes a lot of resources ... people, memory, and processing ... but it is free and more or less machine independent. These are my opinions only ... based on my own experience with each of these packages ... I invite other opinions ... and corrections of any errors ... as unintended as errors are meant to be. Best of luck, AJ
randy@uokmax.UUCP (Longshot) (08/09/89)
In the name of avoiding senseless arguments, please pass this thread up if you have not used both. I am trying to decide which is an easier environment to work with, for programming graphics-based applica- tions. We have both X11R3 and Suntools. I have yet to actually try to write something with X, pending a reference manual for the library which is en route to me (I hope) courtesy of LCIS. I have typed in some demos from Suntools. Boy, you guys at Sun sure believe in strong typing, eh? Anyhow, if you have some rudimentary exposure to both, I would value your opinion. Ideally, I should try to work both. But I am entering my senior year, this is not a project for credit, and I have ony so much time. Randy -- Randy J. Ray University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma (405)/325-5370 !texsun!uokmax!randy randy@uokmax.uucp randy@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu "Quick to judge, Quick to anger, slow to understand; Ignorance, prejudice, and fear go hand in hand..." - Neil Peart
ari@kolmogorov.physics.uiuc.edu (08/15/89)
Stay away from Suntools. I have done programming in it and it is a pain. It is unobject oriented and it is hard to make a standard widget or even adapt the current ones to do what you would like without severe headaches. Anyway, SUN is converting to X in the near (or far?) future. I think the Xtoolkit is at least adaptable from other accounts (still not wonderful). And MOTIF etc. will be available which gives you a large set of widgets from HP/DEC etc. ari
jarnot@canisius.UUCP (Kevin Jarnot) (08/16/89)
In article <7600001@kolmogorov>, ari@kolmogorov.physics.uiuc.edu writes: > > Stay away from Suntools. I have done programming in it and it is a pain. > It is unobject oriented and it is hard to make a standard widget or > even adapt the current ones to do what you would like without > severe headaches. > Well, I assume you mean SunWindow and not SunTools. SunTools was written in SunWindow if I'm not mistaken. Anyways, I've always enjoyed working in SunWindow and I'll also disagree that it is "unobject oriented". It's as close as you can get to object oriented in C. The interfaces are nice and clean and VERY easy to set up. You can get a half decent window interface created in hours. -- ...!{decvax|watmath|allegra|rocksvax}!sunybcs!canisius!jarnot jarnot@klaatu.cs.canisius.edu "Damn, these chancres hurt!" | Buffalo...the Miami of the North. -Friedrich Nietzsche | Miami...the Buffalo of the South??
klee@gilroy.pa.dec.com (Ken Lee) (08/17/89)
In article <2439@canisius.UUCP>, jarnot@canisius.UUCP (Kevin Jarnot) writes: > I've always > enjoyed working in SunWindow and I'll also disagree that it is > "unobject oriented". It's as close as you can get to object oriented > in C. The interfaces are nice and clean and VERY easy to set up. You > can get a half decent window interface created in hours. Sorry, I have to disagree with this. SunWindow and SunView are not object oriented. They have none of the standard object oriented features such as classing and inheritance. They're easy to use if the standard panel items meet your needs, but writing your own is impossible unless you buy a source licence (which Sun may or may not be willing to sell you). The X Toolkit, on the other hand, allows classing and inheritance. Writing your own X Toolkit widgets (the equivalent of Sun panel items) is relatively easy. If you don't want to write your own widgets, the existing X Toolkit widget sets (such as Open Look from AT&T, DECwindows from DEC, and Motif from OSF) are much richer (more powerful and flexible) than the SunView set. Other than that, the programming interfaces to SunView and to the X Toolkit are very similar. In most cases, neither is easier to use. Ken
borg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (daniel.w.meeks) (08/21/89)
Isn't this kinda a null point? Sun is not going to support sunview or suntools much longer anyway. They are going to their X/NeWS merge and using xview, a sunview like X toolkit, as an advertised way to port existing sunview applications. cheers, --dwm
clh@tacitus.tfic.bc.ca (Chris Hermansen) (08/27/89)
For those of you who haven't read your 4.0.3 docs carefully, you might all take note that SunCORE and SunCGI are not supported after 4.0.3, either. The story is that you'll be able to buy the source if you want to...
rich@net1.ucsd.edu (bmf) (08/30/89)
In article <2568@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> borg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (daniel.w.meeks,ihp,) writes: >Isn't this kinda a null point? Sun is not going to support sunview >or suntools much longer anyway. They are going to their X/NeWS merge >and using xview, a sunview like X toolkit, as an advertised way to >port existing sunview applications. > > >cheers, --dwm I thought X/NeWS was at least a year away from supporting full color on the Sun (24 bit). A year is a long time to wait if that is what your product needs. -Rich /* Rich Stewart {dcdwest,ucbvax}!ucsd!net1!rich */