folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (02/23/90)
At work, we have to make a decision as to which way to go: move our Sun 3 SunView
operations to xnews and XView, or move to X11R4 and use other toolkits.
Questions:
1. Is it really advantageous to stay with Sun on the move to X or is MIT's X11R4
generic tape a viable option? (e.g. is the fact that Open Windows is supported
by Sun a big advantage over the more generic X11R4?)
2. Do most toolkits (other than XView) allow mixing and matching among themselves
are they mostly exclusive? (I am thinking particularly of Xcu.)
3. Do most toolkits (other than XView) have an object-orientation with
inheritence?
4. Will a mixture (Sun's server, other people's X11R4 toolkits) be possible now
or in the near future?
--
Wayne Folta (folta@cs.umd.edu 128.8.128.8)david@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (David E. Smyth) (02/23/90)
In article <22697@mimsy.umd.edu> folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) writes: >At work, we have to make a decision as to which way to go: move our Sun 3 SunView >operations to xnews and XView, or move to X11R4 and use other toolkits. Ask your users: ours voted unanimously for Motif. Motif has Windows/PM look and feel. We have 10000 PCs and 500 Suns. Virtually none of the Suns have open look (they either use SunView or Motif), and MANY of the PCs have Windows. The user response wasn't PURELY based on technical merit. It also based on familiarity, and on Motif's beautiful presentation. But so what? Do you buy a car with the steering wheel on the left or on the right? You buy whichever is more familiar. When choosing between two otherwise acceptable cars, would you buy an ugly one or a nice looking one? >Questions: > 1. Is it really advantageous to stay with Sun on the move to X or is MIT's X11R4 > generic tape a viable option? (e.g. is the fact that Open Windows is supported > by Sun a big advantage over the more generic X11R4?) It is VERY advantageous to move to X11R4 because it is the state of the art. It is also ALOT faster that xnews. It is also more generic: its ALOT easier to move your environment between X11R4 on a Sun to a DECstation or to a HP or to a ... > 2. Do most toolkits (other than XView) allow mixing and matching among themselves > are they mostly exclusive? (I am thinking particularly of Xcu.) Yes. It is suprisingly easy to mix widgets from various widget sets. However, then you end up with a mixed look-and-feel, which is not always nice. > 3. Do most toolkits (other than XView) have an object-orientation with > inheritence? Yes. We have even proven that it is realtively easy for people to write new widgets which are derived from the Motif widget set. In my group there are three people who are developing widgets derived from Motif widgets. We do not have source. It is taking about 1.5 weeks clock time (maybe 30-40 hours actually programming) to implement the FIRST widget, even if the programmer is a student with NO Xt or X experience! > 4. Will a mixture (Sun's server, other people's X11R4 toolkits) be possible now > or in the near future? It does not work very well. For example, xnews uses the R2 font mechanism. I don't know why you'd use OpenWindows [sic] anyway. Its extremely bogus. Why? Much of the server is implemented in Postscript (Sun tries to deny this, but when it crashes you get postscript stack dumps even if it is in X only mode). NeWS implements all the light weight processes in one address space. Postscript has no compiler: bugs like argument confusion only get caught when executed. Postscript clients download, hit the bug, AND THE ENTIRE SERVER CRASHES not just the client! Talk about a poor technical approach. Postscript it a Page Description Language, not a general purpose programming language! Use C for logic and control (like in a server or a client) and use postscript if you need fancy page layouts. ---------------------------------------------------------- David Smyth david@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov Senior Software Engineer, seismo!cit-vax!jpl-devvax!david X and Object Guru. (818)364-6344 JPL, M/S 301-260, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 ----------------------------------------------------------
rick@hanauma.stanford.edu (Richard Ottolini) (02/24/90)
Our group decided to use either Xview or InterViews for the main reason is that they are entirely in public domain and run well on most types of computers. First, history shows that public domain packages, UNIX (early AT&T, GNU), C++ (GNU), and X Windows win out over their possibility superior competitors (VMS, Objective C, NeWS) because academic hackers evolve them and write useful applications for them. Second, academics have a low bureaucracy tolerance. Event though Motif is relatively cheap it still has to purchased and licensed through an archane bucreauracy at our university. Third, Stanford is a Sun shop. At least 50% of the UNIX workstations here are Suns. We suffered because Sun was late in supporting Xwindows and don't intend to continue to suffer because of Sun's indifference to Motif. Fourth, poeple prefered the antecedents Sunview over DecWindows. I concede this doesn't imply Xview and Motif share the same strengths and weaknesses. It is still early. Our research group's funding is 90% industrial (Big Oil) which has nearly unanimously embraced Motif.
marbru@auto-trol.UUCP (Martin Brunecky) (02/25/90)
In article <495@med.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma.UUCP (Richard Ottolini) writes: >Our group decided to use either Xview or InterViews for the main >reason is that they are entirely in public domain and run well ... >First, history shows that public domain packages, UNIX (early AT&T, GNU C++) >and X Windows win out over their possibility superior competitors >(VMS, Objective C, NeWS) because academic hackers evolve them and write >useful applications for them. > ( complaints about OSF buerocracy deleted ) > >It is still early. Our research group's funding is 90% industrial (Big Oil) >which has nearly unanimously embraced Motif. What does it mean "embraced Motif" ? Are we talking Motif Style Guide OR it's first implementation, distributed by OSF ? My feeling is that most companies endorse Motif STYLE/LOOK, for the simple sake of ENDING the user interface battles. But I am firmly convinced, that if someone puts into a PUBLIC DOMAIN a toolkit compliant with Motif Style Guide ( preferably Xt based, but even that may not be a requirement), we have a definitive winner. In fact, there is nothing magic about Motif. About 30 widgets plus bunch of support and convenience routines. Most of the Motif widgets aren't any miracles. So why not EVOLVE something like Xaw into Motif Style Guide compliant tooolkit ? The functionality requirements are given, the technology is known, and here is an opportunity to avoid Motif implementation flaws and come up with a toolkit which not only has a widely accepted look and feel, but which is also OPEN - i.e. allows ANYBODY to improve/add functionality, new widgets etc. An alternative to Xt based toolkit is C++ (see for example Solbourne OI). My personal preference, however, is Xt. I really like the concept of resource database and many, many other features ( the more I work with Xt, the more I like it - thank you, Joel, Paul, Ralph and others ). Plus, you can use Xt based toolkit from many languages, not just C or C++ only. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* Martin Brunecky marbru@auto-trol.COM (303) 252-2499 {...}ncar!ico!auto-trol!marbru Auto-trol Technology Corp. 12500 North Washington St., Denver, CO 80241-2404
hvr@kimba.Sun.COM (Heather Rose) (03/06/90)
In article <7150@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> david@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (David E. Smyth) writes: > >Ask your users: ours voted unanimously for Motif. Motif has Windows/PM look "Asking your users" is an extremely good point. It really depends upon your existing and future customer base, time to market, etc. If you have a lot of expertise in SunView, XView will be the easiest X11 toolkit to move to, so this may play into time to market. Also, it can depend upon what you are willing to supply to your customers. i.e. do you want to use the "default" window system that comes with the hardware or do you want to supply something extra? >>Questions: >> 1. Is it really advantageous to stay with Sun on the move to X or is MIT's X11R4 >> generic tape a viable option? (e.g. is the fact that Open Windows is supported >> by Sun a big advantage over the more generic X11R4?) > >It is VERY advantageous to move to X11R4 because it is the state of the art. It >is also ALOT faster that xnews. It is also more generic: its ALOT easier to move >your environment between X11R4 on a Sun to a DECstation or to a HP or to a ... Basically, I suggest you go down to the Sun sales office or drop by a local trade show and ask them your questions. Ask them what's coming out and how you can make the best decision. Sit down and play with the demonstrated product for yourself. Work out some numbers on what the costs are: i.e. pricing per seat, development time, future market etc. Regards, Heather