meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (02/17/89)
I would just like to take a moment to clarify something. I have probably mentioned some problem I have had, or something I didn't like about X11 in at least a dozen postings, yet have probably never bothered to say anything good about it. Or its developers and maintainers. First of all, I tend to get involved in projects that push pieces of technology to their limits. At one place I worked, we uncovered bugs in curses nobody seemed to have run into before. Nevertheless, I use curses for almost any ascii- display oriented text. And am glad it's there. (No, I'm not comparing curses and X11!) Likewise, we are pushing certain parts of X11 fairly hard, under less than optimal conditions. We don't always have the time or resources to keep up with the very latest OS upgrades (especially when they make things worse 8*) or to add all the patches as soon as they become available (we have deadlines (shudder) to meet). In particular, we have beat fairly hard on the Athena widget set, and are up against the wall on some of the timestamp problems known to exist. But overall, we are happy with X11. We chose it over other products, and have not regretted that decision. Considering the sheer mass of code, and how well the portability goals have been met, it is a flat-out amazing piece of software. Furthermore, the service level provided by the Athena folks and their relations and friends throughout the X11 and usenet communities is much higher than that of many of the computer vendors with which I have dealt. At any rate, I just wanted to clear things up (no, nobody asked me too!), and to say thanks to the people who made it all happen! Thanks, gang! -Miles