Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!pacbell!varian!kinetics!minshall
From: minshall@kinetics.UUCP (Greg Minshall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: graphics
Message-ID: <791@kinetics.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 89 05:26:24 GMT
Organization: Kinetics, Inc., Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 38

First of all, I am at the very least modestly inclined towards Smalltalk,
if not an outright supporter.  Next, I am really not particularly
knowledgeable about graphics (I barely know what anti-aliasing means,
for example).

I recently bought the new, 1989 edition of "Smalltalk-80, the language"
and am very depressed at the graphics used to illustrate the book.
Straight "lines" that are jagged, primitive representations of
insects or other images.  None of these are representative of the
graphics possible on good, state of the art workstations (such as
a Macintosh, a PC with a VGA card, a Sun, etc.).  In fact, the
graphics in the book are so poor compared to other modern systems that
it seems quite embarassing.

If these represent the best Smalltalk can do (which is unlikely) then
it seems important that someone figure out what needs to be done to
do things better.

If these do *not* represent the best Smalltalk can do (which seems likely),
then the best Smalltalk can do should have been used in the manual.  The
impression any casual reader is going to get is that the graphics used *are*
the best Smalltalk can do, so the best should have been used.

(The form and bitmap editors which come with PP Smalltalk are similarly poor
at producing graphics of a quality similar to, say, MacDraw.  I don't
remember seeing similar tools in the Digitalk Smalltalk, so I don't know
if they are also produce low-resolution graphics.)

My guess is that the graphics that are used are easy to generate with the
system, and represent the state of the art *as delivered to the typical
end user*.  I submit that the end user deserves (and, worse, expects) more.

If Smalltalk is going to grow, it needs to compete graphically with the
systems of today, not those of a decade ago.  (In fact, the graphics are
strikingly similar to what I remember of Apple II graphics.)

Greg Minshall				Kinetics/Excelan/Novell
minshall@kinetics.com			1-415-947-0998