al@eos.UUCP (Al Globus) (06/30/88)
From talking to people and reading a bit of the documentation it seems that X has two fundimental problems relative to NeWS. Please forgive me if the newsgroup has been over this already, I'm new on it. 1. The performance of highly interactive operations with a remote client are dependent on network load. Examples are rubberbanding lines, dragging objects, blinking things, etc. Is there any general way to do these things without client/server communication (other than setup)? 2. X graphics are pixel based, so if pixel size changes the size of things on the screen changes. If true, both of these are bad news. I'd appreciate a correction if I'm misinformed.
klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee) (06/30/88)
In article <980@eos.UUCP> al@eos.UUCP (Al Globus) writes: >From talking to people and reading a bit of the documentation it seems >that X has two fundimental problems relative to NeWS. Please forgive >me if the newsgroup has been over this already, I'm new on it. > >1. The performance of highly interactive operations with a remote client >are dependent on network load. Yeah, that's a problem and there's no way around it, short of extending the server (at compile time). The client doesn't even have to be remote. Inter-process communication on a single machine eats up alot of cycles. >2. X graphics are pixel based, so if pixel size changes the size of >things on the screen changes. Conversely, if you care about specific pixels or colors, you're screwed if you use NeWS. You can write a PostScript server for X, solving many of these types of problems, although you may pay in speed. >If true, both of these are bad news. I'd appreciate a correction if I'm >misinformed. Actually, they aren't really bad problems. Most current (production) applications programs can live with them. Future applications for future hardware may have serious problems, though. NeWS is definately a more advanced system. Unfortunately, it's difficult to program (large applications) and difficult to port. Hopefully SunView2 and the AT&T/Sun X/NeWS merge will help. Ken -- uucp: {atari, nsc, pyramid, imagen, uunet}!daisy!klee arpanet: atari!daisy!klee@ames.arc.nasa.gov STOP CONTRA AID - BOYCOTT COCAINE