marshall@software.ORG (Eric Marshall) (01/05/89)
I would like to conduct an informal survey to find out how many people are using X on a regular basis, and on what platforms. I am interested in how many people are using X in your organization, and the manufacturer, model number and operating system of the platform which you run it on. If you would like to respond for your entire organization, please indicate this, so that I can watch for other members of your organization responding also. I will summarize and post the results to the net in a few weeks. Thanks in advance. Eric Marshall Software Productivity Consortium SPC Building 2214 Rock Hill Road Herndon, VA 22070 (703) 742-7237 CSNET: marshall@software.org ARPANET: marshall%software.org@relay.cs.net
smikes@hound.UUCP (S.MIKES) (01/12/89)
Most DOS users are (shall we say) less than sophisticated, in fact, some are just downright ignorant. (I said SOME not ALL, after all I am also a DOS user -- a very sophisticated one.) Anyway, I have seen (and evaluated) OpenLook and a few other user interfaces that are attempting to become standards. While OpenLook and some of these others have a few nice features that would be useful in something as simple as Presentation Manager, they also seem to lack the ease of use that PM seems to provide. The average user on a UNIX/X Window platform is bound to be far more sophisticated one than their DOS counterpart. It is for this reason that simplicity is so important. As it happens, I am a member of a group that specializes in User Interface design and development. Most of my colleagues will agree on this last point. As for the decision of OSF to adopt the PM standard, it was probably a good idea from the point of view that in order to effectively compete with Sun and AT&T's OpenLook in a timely manner, they almost had no other choice but to use the PM standard. Presentation Manager, based upon Microsoft Windows, is fairly well defined and is definitly widely accepted in the "real" business community. (I can cite large numbers of businesses in Manhatten alone, where there are full scale MS Windows development projects under way.) The decision in the PC world to use PM (based upon MS Windows) also demonstrates that they have their act together. The chief concern of the vendors is to provide a graphical user interface soon enough so as not to miss the marketing opportunity. Keep in mind that the PC industry is only 5 or 6 years old; and really only 3 or 4 years old in the corporate world. This is in sharp contrast to the UNIX world, where they have had almost 20 years to come up with an adequate front end user interface; and also where there is STILL no clear UI standard. I believe that as the PC hardware evolves to provide more powerful graphics capabilities and reasonable processing power, as do the bulk of the UNIX workstations currently available, Presentation Manager will also evolve to provide more sophisticated look, feel, and functionality [assuming Apple Computer doesn't sue everyone out of business!] I don't believe that the X Window based UNIX user interfaces will ever be driven by what is going on in the PC world, however, I dare say that the UNIX application world could stand to "borrow" a few ideas from some of the more elegant DOS applications. That would be much more likely with a powerful windowing system like X. Lastly, having developed major applications in X, MS Windows and in Presentation Manager (for OS/2) I have experienced the shortcommings of each. X is overwhelming to new developers, so it is likely that it will be some time before it really takes off. MS Windows is riddled with bugs, is poorly documented, poorly supported, runs only on PC's and places severe limitations upon developers. OS/2's most major shortcomming is that it is also a new entity; serious interest is only just beginning to emerge. There are no exhotic toolkits available for MS Windows or PM other than those provided by Microsoft or IBM, which are only the basic developers kits. (SQL Windows and Actor, for MS Windows, are not true toolkits; they don't generate the source code necessary to develop Windows applications, they generate object modules that are linked into Windows executables.) Hewlett-Packard is about to release a new product used to develop X applications that is very likely to become quite popular, codenamed "builder". I don't want to steal HP's thunder before their formal announcement, but this tool will generate the actual C code necessary to produce the screens, widgets, gadgets or whatever. It is kind of like MS Windows' Dialog Editor program, only far more sophisticated. What all this leads up to is, that if any vendors out there ever provide a usable X environment for PC's (one that doesn't totally hog up all the available resources and gives realistically usable performance), then it is quite likely that we will see Presentation Manager (and MS Windows if it's still around) ported over to X. I am aware that somewhere within AT&T (I can't say where) there is already work being done on devising a method to provide MS Windows compatability (through emulation) using X. The main disadvantage that OpenLook and other attempts at UI stand- ardization have compared to MS Windows/Presentation Manager is that they will take time to develop; after initial development, all of the available "standards" for X based UI's must then battle it out to see which one becomes top dog. In the mean time, PM and Windows continue to evolve, further entrenching themselves as standards in the PC world. For this reason, perhaps it is not such a bad business decision for the folks at OSF and UNIX International to have endorsed the PM look/feel. After all, there are a LOT of DOS systems out there; and if you wanted to attract some of those customers to buy and use your products you must provide them with technology they can understand and are not afraid of. Steve Mikes
rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (01/12/89)
I am aware that somewhere within AT&T (I can't say where) there is
already work being done on devising a method to provide MS Windows
compatability (through emulation) using X.
I don't believe its any secret that Microsoft has said it is working
on a 3-phase PM/X project, with phase 1 being the Common X Interface
it developed with HP, phase 2 being a local PM implementation under
Unix, using a peer interface with an X server, and phase 3 being
distributed PM using an X protocol extension.smikes@hound.UUCP (01/13/89)
Yes, I too am aware of that; however, there is additional work going on within AT&T (that you may also be aware of) besides that. Being that I am under non-disclosure agreement I can't say who, where, or exactly what that other work is.k I can say that there is someone working on developing something that "ports" existing MS Windows source to their approximate X functions; and whenever necessary to "emulate" the equivalent functions if there is no direct equivalent. When I first heard of this I gawked "why would anyone want to mimic MS Windows in X instead of the other way around?" I still don't have the answer. Thanks for the reply. Steve