aihaug@AUSTIN.LOCKHEED.COM (Daniel A Haug) (06/08/89)
Hi, I am about to embark on some interface work that will lay the ground work for the next 18 months of a particular project. I have a long term question: which standard is better to pursue, X, or NeWS? This will be on a Silicon Graphics, and possibly eventually on a Sun. I've heard that NeWS is dead. Is this true? When will there be solid vendor support for X? thanks in advance, dan haug -- Internet: haug@austin.lockheed.com UUCP: ut-emx!lad-shrike!aihaug
siegel@hc.DSPO.GOV (josh Siegel) (06/08/89)
In article <286@shrike.AUSTIN.LOCKHEED.COM> aihaug@AUSTIN.LOCKHEED.COM (Daniel A Haug) writes:
<I am about to embark on some interface work that will lay the ground work
<for the next 18 months of a particular project. I have a long term
<question: which standard is better to pursue, X, or NeWS? This will
<be on a Silicon Graphics, and possibly eventually on a Sun. I've
<heard that NeWS is dead. Is this true? When will there be solid
<vendor support for X?
What do you want to do? Fancy interfaces? CAD?
NeWS is NOT dead! It's just that everybody can't drive a Porshe.
Silicon Graphics is going to support NeWS/X11 but currently are distributing
only NeWS (Forsight) since NeWS/X11 isn't out. Sun wrote NeWS/X11 and
will be supporting it. A lot of venders are going to be using NeWS/X11
because it both gives them the best of both worlds AND sun is going to
be supporting it.
Come to USENIX and we can show you all that can be done with NeWS in
outrageously small amounts of code before you decide. There will be
lots of NeWS and X11 experts in the NeWSnix booth.
<dan haug
Josh Siegel
--
Josh Siegel (siegel@hc.dspo.gov)
"Oh well.. I guess I will just bury my guns... sigh.. " - Standard Gun Ownerdkmann@SUN.COM (Darlene Mann) (06/09/89)
NeWS is NOT dead!! NeWS 1.1 is shipping out of Sun at healthy rates. The next "version" of NeWS will be shipping this summer in X11/NeWS. There are products that are, and will continue to ship on top of NeWS. There is a NeWS vendors organization (Open Vistas Assoc) who will be exhibiting NeWS ports and applications at Usenix next week. I believe you should choose the windows system you use based on your needs; there are some significant differences between NeWS and X whereby one my suit your application or environment better than the other. As far as standards, reality forces me to believe that you will find more vendors (i.e. workstation manufacturers) supplying X with there equipment than NeWS or X11/NeWS. However, the two platforms you mention currently ship with NeWS, and I have no reason to believe that will change in the future. NeWS is definitely NOT dead. Sun has always been committed to delivering superior technology to our customers. However, we are also committed to supporting the requests of our customers. We believe X11/NeWS will meet both requirements. Darlene Mann NeWS Product Manager
hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) (06/10/89)
We've been looking at NeWS vs X at Rutgers. I agree with other comments here that it depends upon your needs. Here's my preliminary conclusion from a users' point of view. X seems to be sufficient for standard applications. It's got a good terminal emulator, Emacs support, clock, dbx interface, all that standard stuff. For many users this is enough. We think a well-tuned pure X is bound to perform better on small machines than X11/NeWS. So we're guessing the 3/50 users, and possibly people on other system whose needs are minimal, will stick with a pure X. Lots of people here like NeWS from the point of view of writing applications and tweaking the way the window system works. We also have people who use it simply because they've been able to make psview work for previewing documents. (This doesn't work in general of course. The first person to write a workstation Postscript that is truly compatible with a Laserwrite will get some sort of netwide standing ovation.) I expect X11/NeWS to be the normal window system on Sparcstations. I expect our 3/60's (which are generally 8MB) to be split between the MIT X server and X11/NeWS. What I'm hoping is that when Sun submits Sunview2 to the MIT X consortium, part of what they submit will be an OPENLOOK-style window manager for the MIT X server. If they do this, then we'll be able to get compatible user interfaces on both small machines that have to run pure X and bigger ones that can run the full X11/NeWS. Then the only difference will be whether NeWS applications can be run. Apparently the standard Sun applications (shelltool, clock, and all that stuff) will be done in Sunview2 rather than NeWS, so they should work even on systems running pure X.
jim@kaos.Stanford.EDU (Jim Helman) (06/10/89)
Personally, I think NeWS is cool as hell (if not hot as hell). But most of our work is image and bitmap oriented, and X seems to have an edge on those counts. > Silicon Graphics is going to support NeWS/X11 but currently are distributing > only NeWS (Forsight) since NeWS/X11 isn't out. A version (source + binaries) of X11R3 which runs in conjunction with 4Sight can be obtained from SGI. We're running it on our 4D box, and it works reasonably well. I think SGI will begin shipping X with the standard distribution tapes some time this year. Jim Helman Department of Applied Physics P.O. Box 10494 Stanford University Stanford, CA 94309 (jim@thrush.stanford.edu) (415) 723-4940
rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (06/11/89)
What I'm hoping is that when Sun submits Sunview2 to the MIT X
consortium, part of what they submit will be an OPENLOOK-style window
manager for the MIT X server.
I believe your hopes will be fulfilled.peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (06/12/89)
> What I'm hoping is that when Sun submits Sunview2 to the MIT X > consortium, part of what they submit will be an OPENLOOK-style window > manager for the MIT X server. I hope they also provide TWM. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.