Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!newstop!sun!frisbee!jcb
From: jcb@frisbee.Sun.COM (Jim Becker)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re^4: Gadgets in Motif
Message-ID: <122837@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 21 Aug 89 21:25:08 GMT
References: <322.8908161255@jupiter.cmi.no> <1443@riscy.dec.com> <122257@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <2586@arisia.Xerox.COM>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
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janssen@holmes (Bill Janssen) writes:

->In article <122257@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, jcb@frisbee (Jim Becker) writes:
->>... How has it happened that so many intelligent
->>people have assumed that windows are a cheap resource that can be used
->>freely?

->I thought that "the X Window System" was spec'ed that way?  Are you
->implying that some implementations have failed to meet system design
->goals?


Even if that was a design goal of X, it seems that this is idea is
overkill for the large part. There are examples where the use of a
window is helpful, such as the clipping that comes for free. But on
a per interactive item level, usage of a window seems a bit much.
Before widgets came along there have been quite a number of GUIs 
that have worked without making the distinction of windows for each
interactive element; these also used a lot less memory than what
a normal Unix box comes with. 

My initial exposure to UI systems on X was (early) versions of
Interviews.  The rational in this release of the package made
everything that was potentially interactive, as well as that that was
merely ornamental or geometry based (borders, vbox and hbox glue
structures), a window. In a basic interactive painting window the
overhead would be over a hundred windows, when two could do the job
better.  Walking menus consumed over a hundred windows. The system
performance was not good, to say the least. [please no Interviews
flames].

Early versions of other toolkits also followed the same route of
using lots of windows. I guess that this in line with the line of
thinking that as machines become faster we can more freely use the
resources of the machines. This is not my way of thinking, I would
rather use a minimalist approach and take the speed advantage of
new hardware rather than writting bigger programs to consume the
increase in resources. 

With the R4 release I have the impression that window overhead is
lessened to a great degree. I'm still partial to only using them
when needed though. 


->Bill
->--
-> Bill Janssen        janssen.pa@xerox.com      (415) 494-4763
-> Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
-> 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, California   94304


-Jim

--    
+                                                         +
  Jim Becker	jcb@sun.com    ::  Sun Microsystems, Inc.