rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (01/12/90)
It's a little strange that this conversation has been moved from
news-makers to xpert. (I prefer to be "one of the flamers" there,
rather than an apparent "authority figure" here. :-)
Since one of the goals
of the X Window System is to be widely transportable it seems that to
provide functionality that requires off-beat operating system features
would be shooting yourself in the foot.
My comments should be taken as forward-looking, not present-day exclusionary.
I come from a distributed systems background. I'm not particulary interested
in solving problems for X in isolation when they apply equally to a much
broader set of interfaces and applications. Multi-threading is just a case
in point; I'd rather not solve the "X problem" with multi-threading in the
server just because it's easier to do it there, when I see multi-threading in
a much more general context coming down the pike.
It would be unfortunate if these
efforts were tainted by a dependence upon functionality that is not
available to most users of computers.
I'm not really sure where you read this bias in my statements. I'm certainly
not advocating throwing out current mechanisms and requiring multi-threading
in the operating system in order to write Hello World. I am saying that for
those applications requiring the functionality, design should be done in the
context of what we know (or at least hope) is "just around the corner" for
the system layers beneath us.
I have to disagree in regard to `vastly complex' products.
I think you've read too much into what was intended as a joke.
The solution that you outline also sounds somewhat hairy. I
believe there are simpler ways to skin the cat, although they haven't
appeared yet.
I'm all for simpler solutions; I'd be glad to hear about them.
However I was under the impression that it was moving toward status of
an `exclusive' standard. I am not in the meetings where it is decided,
but the third hand info that floats by seemed to have the Xt toolkit
being put onto the exclusive standards list.
Third hand info is often confused. A great deal of debate has gone on
over NIST's proposed FIPS on X (government standardization), and over the
IEEE P1201 work at the toolkit level (formal standardization). Those are
both distinct from the standardization process in the X Consortium. The
X Consortium is not a ruling body for the government, IEEE, or ANSI, and
other politics come to bear in those domains. However, I am not aware of
any exclusionary wording in the current draft NIST and IEEE documents.
I believe the fact that there are so many efforts other than
Xt is testimony to support my view that Xt isn't the end of the story.
I have never said Xt is the end of the story; I'm not sure anyone ever has.
Ever try to teach your parents how to program a VCR?
Heck, I can't even program my VCR.
The beauty of the Mac is that they took all the complexity and
packaged it for the user into something understandable. The manual to
use the Mac is mighty thin, and comprehensive.
You have suddenly jumped from *writing* applications to *using* them.
A manual to *use* a well-designed X application set can be just as thin
and comprehensive. I would not call Mac programming documentation "thin".
(That doesn't mean I think a programming interface should be complex.)
Speaking of which, is there any weight given in the standards process
to complexity of use/comprehension, performance and commercial
viability?
Of course. The companies involved in a standardization process are seldom
in it just for a good time.
My involvement with the X C++ Consortium meeting at
Stanford seemed to be absent from these real issues.
This was also the kickoff meeting to C++ work, where it's very useful to
"blue sky" to get the feel for things. You don't know where good limits
make sense until you understand the space. It's rather simplistic to draw
too many conclusions from a single meeting like this.
What is going on in New Orleans this week? Thought there was
expectation of closure.
I'm way too busy to attend the P1201 meeting this week. (So why am I writing
this message?) If you know anything about the way formal standards bodies work,
and the short period of time that P1201 has existed, you can answer this
question yourself.