frank5@mars.njit.edu (Frank D. Greco CIS Adj. Prof.) (01/14/90)
>From: graham@fuel.dec.com (kris graham) > > >In article <13324@granite.BBN.COM>, mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) writes: > > >> Now ask yourself what might happen if Sun were to donate the source to >> X11/NeWS to the MIT X Consortium, just for the sake of promoting it as a >> (...stuff deleted...) >> So ask yourself what might happen if X11R5 (or X12 or something) were >> based on the merged NeWS/X server... Then ask yourself how we might make >> this happen... > >I have heard a lot about the so-called "Technical Superiority" of NeWS. >Anybody care to educate us non-believers of this claim. I have never >thought of Postscript as a friendly language to program in.....or love a >windowing system that makes the implementation of a print screen facility >more tedious than necessary ; > Kris, before you condemn something, at least try programming in NeWS.... Typically all the "non-believers" all have been "non-tryers". Your own company is promoting PostScript very strongly (you guys *do* have a contract with Adobe for Display PostScript), so I wouldn't put it down so much. Besides, most good programmers pick up PostScript fairly quickly. There is this myth that it is complicated because it is not infix notation. Alright, so use CPS (or something similar). Someone out there even has a C to PS application (actually its probably more of a postfix to infix translator), so you can still pgm in your beloved C. Why is a print screen facility tedious under NeWS? I don't understand. We have *simple* routines that perform screen dumps. I'll show you a one-liner in NeWS if you want. Besides "friendly" is subjective... >BTW: On a more cynical note, we all know the outcome of the "SPARC > versus XXX" 'technical superiority" battle ;-) > Yes, we do know that. I wonder what will happen to XXX now that SPARC has won? |:-> >One of my co-workers, Larry Timmins, has been involved in multiple ports >of applications originally done with Sun's toolkits. On average, for every six >months (calendar time) that the customer/software house put into the project, >only one month was needed with DECwindows' XUI toolkit. Using the Intrinsics >-based toolkit reduces the network requests and ultimately has proven itself >over and over. Contrary to your opinion, I have had many of my colleagues in the financial community have told me that the DECwindows XUI/UIL "toolkit" is awkward to use. Applications don't take a month to produce. What were the facts in these applications Kris? You're beginning to sound like a marketeer! I guess if a DEC employee says that its a 6 to 1 win for XUI, then DEC *must* be right. ;-> Application programmers have steep curves when learning XUI and UIL (more on the XUI side though). People that have been using the XView toolkit, while not perfect, have been able to create real applications in weeks. Sun's GUIDE lets me produce a prototype of the user interface of a real application in one day. Just how have the intrinsics-based toolkits proven themselves? Using the intrinsics to create widgets is akin to writing Unix device drivers. It's overly complex. The concept of having a higher layer above Xlib is obviously useful, but why are the intrinsics *so* darn complicated? Surprisingly many of the stalwart X programmers that I know agree that NeWS is more elegant. We all agree that NeWS needs more performance. Most of them (and I) agree that X is more prevalent (esp. in the NYC area) and that while NeWS is fun, we have to prostitute ourselves and are forced to program in X if we want to work. However, lately I have seen more than a slight inclination in some of the large financial institutions of NYC to at least seriously consider NeWS, at least in an XView CANVAS object. >Regarding the donation of X11/NeWS, fine -- put it in the >contrib like others have. >However, when OSF went with the XUI toolkit, it was a fully tested production >-quality toolkit at over 300 sites. What is needed is solid incremental >contributions and not yet another toolkit, approach, etc. > Fully-tested? By whom? Facts Kris, facts. Besides, what does "fully-tested" mean anyway? Maybe you *are* a marketeer Kris! Why are only "solid incremental contributions" needed? There is a rumor going around that innovation sometimes solves problems too! ;-> What the heck is wrong with another approach to solving a problem?! If there was only one way of solving a problem, we'd all be still punching cards or hacking away on some archaic OS like VMS. >Christopher Graham >Digital Equipment Corp >Ultrix Resource Center >New York City Frank G.