gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu (Silver) (02/14/88)
My qualifications in the windowing system/graphics areas, so you know where I'm coming from, are not staggering. I like to program, I like to play with environments to make them better. Graphics are fun. I think in terms of not only what is good for today, but what will be good in the future. When I'm not being paid to work on computers, I do so for pleasure. - I like the NeWS paradigm. (What's a pixel? :-) Nicely extensible, and PostScript is a neat language. The data structure of the physical display is nicely abstracted away from the programmer/user. I wonder if Sun has considered adding a byte-compiling feature to NeWS? Then, after that (after picking up the pieces :-), an optimizer for the byte-compiled code? Also, I understand that there are some `features' of the lite process manager which some consider undesireable. Not being familiar with this, I won't attempt to offer an opinion in its regard. - I like the ease of programming. Routines defining other routines is a standard concept/practice in computer science... - For the above two points, I think the NeWS idea is a win for the same reason GNU Emacs (and other programs which implement a language to do the dirty work) won. - For what you get in display quality and extensibility, I am happy with the speed of the implementation. Besides, machines are getting faster... - Although I am aware that NeWS is much less of a burden on a network (orders of magnitude, I'm told), I don't think this is a point to do any bashing over. Networks are getting stronger, as was mentioned by a previous poster. Is there any merit to the following proposal: For X, write a buffering routine which buffers calls to X routines into chunks, and `write out' the buffer via a call to a buffer-outputting routine or by meeting a condition. (Hmm... Does X allow more than one message per packet? If it doesn't, surely it wouldn't be difficult to extend it to do so... Haven't followed up on this one, and don't intend to - it's just a thought.) Oh well, I guess I'd better pull on my asbestos underwear, and protect the important stuff. (Indescriminant flamage to /dev/null, all else to /usr/spool/mail/gaynor.) ___ \o/ Cheers, V [Ag] _|_ Andy Gaynor 201-545-0458 81 Hassart St, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu ...!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!gaynor
gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu (Silver) (02/14/88)
I wrote, somewhat uninformed as to the internals of X: > Is there any merit to the following proposal: For X, write a > buffering routine which buffers calls to X routines into chunks, and > `write out' the buffer via a call to a buffer-outputting routine or > by meeting a condition. Apparently, this *is* the way things are done (or something real similar). So, I guess there was merit to the proposal. :-) [Ag]