🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Jul25.224140.24184@cbnewsm.att.com> nsw@cbnewsm.att.com (Neil Weinstock) writes:
>In article <6091@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>I didn't say graphics were a bug. I said X was a bug. Not only is it big, but
>>it's primitive. ALL the windows are SIMPLEREFRESH!

>I've been educating myself about Xlib lately, and this seems like one of the
>really grossest things in X.  I wonder how many applications know how to
>properly update just the damaged areas?

>My "favorite" thing is when you scroll a partially obscured region of a window.
>Blech!  Why bother to scroll at all?

>Here's to SMARTREFRESH,

Well, that flaw in X is certainly a flaw.  Its also a flaw in the Macintosh
windowing system, which also handles only SIMPLEREFRESH windows (unless they
have fixed that recently).  Something that needs to be updated in both of
these systems.

However, at least X has something that we don't have; a client-server model.
So, for example, my X client on my Amiga here can talk to an X program 
though the server on a VAX or Apollo.  What this means is that, while the
actual program runs on the VAX or Apollo, my Amiga is doing all the display
work.  This is why you have X Terminals in the first place; X can work over
a network just like smart terminals (eg, VTxxx, Concept, that ilk) work over
a serial line.  If the basic Amiga display system worked like X does, you
wouldn't worry about things like AUX: for dialing it; you could dial in or
direct connect to your A2500, A3000, or whatever high speed server and still 
do all the display work on that puny A500 on your desk, for example.

I think, as you look over most areas of reasonably new technology, each 
particular instance has a better idea than most others (the Mac's area of
strength is its fast, device independent graphics kernel), but tends to miss
the strengths of the competing systems.  But as far as graphics goes, we're
still at best at the second generation of GUIs, perhaps still the first
PC-based generation.  I really don't know how you calculate generations, only
that we're only NOW at the point where different GUIs are picking up ideas
from one another.

And Graphics isn't everything.  Let's think about system-level mathematics 
for a moment.  Most systems are at generation 1.  The Amiga might be at
generation 2, but the alternate systems (FFP vs. IEEE) has held this back.
We still aren't at generation 3, which, like the Mac graphics subsystem,
supports device independent mathematics at a high enough level for this to
actually work.  

If you sit down for a moment, you can probably think of all kinds of stuff
that's still pretty primitive on "modern" PC operating systems.  All it takes
is suspension of "The Programmer" in you for a moment or two; "The
Programmer" is the guy who's happy with The Way Things Are and just wants to
use these things.  Me, I'm never happy with computers.  Humanity does seem
to have Beer pretty well nailed down, but computer; forget it.  They're just
starting to get usable....

>                                   - Neil

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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           The Dave Haynie branch of the New Zealand Fan Club