Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!oz
From: oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: twm questions
Message-ID: <9733@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: 6 Apr 90 18:43:28 GMT
References: <2773@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> <9003302245.AA26720@kanga.lcs.mit.edu> <1432@nih-csl.UUCP> <1990Apr4.173406.11189@antel.uucp>
Reply-To: oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit)
Organization: York U. Communications Research & Development
Lines: 36

In article <1990Apr4.173406.11189@antel.uucp> mike@antel.uucp (Michael Borza) writes:
>In article <1432@nih-csl.UUCP> shaffer@net-sun1.nih.gov (Micheal Alan Shaffer) writes:
>>from side to side a lot. For me the question is how can I modify a
>>mac so that the scroll bars are on the left :-).
>
>Which is exactly why these things should be programmable, via xrdb or
>otherwise.  Just because you find xterm suits your purposes, why should
>anyone else. 

Sure. Just figure out "what" to use for "programming" these things. You no
doubt heard of "diminishing returns" ?? Well, with 30 (ok, maybe 15?)
different crappy almost-programming-languages (with few notable real
programming languages excepted) floating about to program anything and
everything, it may be faster to hack C source than to have to learn 30
different syntaxes and semantics, one for your editor, one for your
window-juggler, one for your virtual terminal, one for your directory
browser, one for your toaster, ad nauseam... IMO, "Programmibility" and
"Extensibility" as generally meant and used these days has reached a new
level of absurdity.

> ... Designing it [xterm] today as it is currently implemented would be
> unthinkable.

Perhaps not, but is the alternative to implement yet another shoddy
"extension language" that does not look like anything you have ever seen
before, or a poor/toy imitation of one you *have* seen before ?? 

oz
---
[btw, for a radical view on this issue, see Rob Pike's "Window Systems
Should Be Transparent" on Computing Systems Vol. 1 #3 (1988)]
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