jgarb@CSD360B.ERIM.ORG (Joe Garbarino) (05/09/89)
Mark Callow of SGI writes: > On present SGI hardware XOR performance is at best adequate. We therefore > recommend you run our window manager which does rubberbanding in the overlay > planes (it's written in PostScript, but that's another story) rather > than something like uwm which uses xor all over the place. I replied: @ Until this XOR/window manager problem is solved, a major piece of SGI's X @ Window System implementation is severely inadequate, and I will not be @ satisfied with its performance. Mark again: > I said the performance was "adequate". How you translate that to "severely > inadequate" without even having seen it is beyond me. uwm is usable. "at best adequate" says to me that while it may be adequate in some respects, it is mostly inadequate. If you can follow the drawing of the outlines of the windows as they are being moved/resized with awm/twm/uwm, as you can in the current implementation, this is indeed severely inadequate. Movement/resizing of the windows is one of the more important functions of the window manager; making it a very slow function actually makes that window manager unuseable. Joe Garbarino ERIM P.O. Box 8618 Ann Arbor, Mi. 48107 (313)994-1200 x2508 jgarb@csd360b.erim.org
baskett@SGI.COM (05/12/89)
"Movement/resizing of the windows is one of the more important functions of the window manager;" True. "making it a very slow function actually makes that window manager unuseable." Perhaps for you. For most people I know, the window manager needs to process input events quickly and efficiently, not use too much memory, not use too many CPU cycles, and do menus and such tools quickly. Most people I know don't move or resize windows very many times per minute/ hour/day so the speed of those operations is not especially critical as long as it is fast enough to not be irritating. What is fast enough to not be irritating is a personal judgement, too. But Mark is right in that you should try it before you make that judgement. Forest Baskett