rick@bnrunix.UUCP (Richard Johns X7191) (08/29/89)
Actually, I'd guess quite a lot. I understand Steve Jobs does not think much of X, but I haven't seen a coherent list of gripes anywhere. Has anyone listed the pros and cons of the X and NeXT approaches? I'll take any input. Thanks in advance. Rick Johns BNR Research Triangle Park, NC (919)991-7191 rti!bnrunix!rick@mcnc.org rjohns@bnr.ca
tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) (08/30/89)
In article <251@bnrunix.UUCP> rick@bnrunix.UUCP (Richard Johns X7191) writes: |Actually, I'd guess quite a lot. I understand Steve Jobs does not think much |of X, but I haven't seen a coherent list of gripes anywhere. Has anyone listed |the pros and cons of the X and NeXT approaches? I'll take any input. X Con: When Jobs et al were getting NeXT going (a surprisingly long time ago) X was not really a presence, and nobody could have predicted how widespread it would become. X Pro: Whatever you think about X, it's here, and it works, and lots of people are using it. So what chance does NeXT's incompatible-with-everything new window system have? Well, the NeXT is not dramatically nicer to *use* than either X or NeWS with a good window manager, although there is perhaps greater integrity of aesthetic design, i.e. the screen looks better. (I recognize this statement is entirely subective.) So is it nicer to *program*? Irrelevant. I write big applications for a living, and once I have found a portable window system that supports the application set fairly simply and cleanly, then other window systems are merely expensive irritations. Our X applications run just fine, thank you, on Suns, Vaxes, Sequents, 386/ix, and NCD X terminals, to name only the ones we've tested so far. Is anybody prepared to argue that there's any chance of success for X-on-NeXTStep? Or any window manager on top of any other? Performance is always a problem with these things, and neither of these systems is famous for its speed right now (yeah, I know, with 1.0 and R4, everything will be just fine). So what might Jobs et al have against X? Maybe they're just pissed that it took off the way it did. If they'd taken all the blood, sweat, and virtuosity they poured into building from scratch, and worked with the X guys, they might be at version 1.3 now, and their computer would be the ace-pro development platform of choice for building portable window based applications for the world. Because they did a lot of other things right. Cheers, Tim Bray, New OED Project, U of Waterloo, Ontario