🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2716@bacchus.dec.com> klee@decwrl.dec.com writes:
|Also there is little
|technical difference between X and NeWS, except for very small machines
|(where X probably wins because of its less complex server) and very
|unusual machines (where NeWS probably wins because of its
|high-level-only graphics model).  My metric in both cases is efficiency
|(human time) of typical end users and application programmers.

Interesting metric. I think the important thing to consider is the
application. Some applications don't need NeWS. Others
are very difficult to do without it.


Examples:

	Suppose you wanted to draw a circle. And you needed the
roundest possible circle. NeWS could use anti-aliasing, high-resolution
displays, and graphic accelerators. Ever look at a 10 by 10 pixel
circle in X? Or a wide line drawn on a diagonal?

	Scalable windows. Easy to do with NeWS. Difficult with X.

	Light Weight processes - At the MIT X consortium, there were a
lot of discussion on light weight processes in the server. HP and
others were investigating extensions to X, as they felt this would be
useful. NeWS had this all along.

	NeWS allows you to decide  where the user interaction takes
place: client or server.

	It is clear that for some applications, NeWS is too powerful
and complex. But it is clearly a next-generation window system, as it
has solved problems that X programmers have just started to look at.










|
|The real reason for choosing, in most sites, will be applications.  If
|you're a software developer, you should choose what your customers are
|using.  If you're a customer, you have to choose from what your vendors
|are selling.  I know that's kind of circular, but that's how capitalism
|works.  Each side can influence the other, though (user groups and
|advertising).  X is winning the window system war because customers
|require it for interoperability and all vendors ship it.
|
|The OpenLook vs. Motif war is still raging, but this is less
|important.  If you use X, applications (other than window managers)
|using OpenLook and Motif can generally exist simultaneously and
|interoperate properly.  The look & feel will be slightly different,
|though.  Eventually (possibly soon), there will be enough applications
|on the market so that users can make look & feel one of their
|purchasing decisions.  Some user surveys do indicate that Motif is
|more popular, but this market is relatively new and subject to change.
|
|You may ask, why aren't their standards in this area?  The answer is
|there will be soon.  The accredited standards organizations (ANSI,
|NIST, IEEE, X/OPEN, ISO) are all basing their window system standards
|on the X Window System.  All but ANSI are also requiring the X
|Toolkit.  IEEE is considering the OpenLook vs. Motif issue, but has not
|made much progress yet.
|
|Ken Lee
|DEC Western Software Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif.
|Internet: klee@wsl.dec.com
|uucp: uunet!decwrl!klee


--
-- 
Bruce G. Barnett	barnett@crd.ge.com	uunet!crdgw1!barnett