Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!argv
From: argv@turnpike.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan Heller)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif
Subject: Re: Optimization / Speedups
Message-ID: <140707@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 15 Aug 90 19:36:11 GMT
References: <9007@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: O'Reilly && Associates
Lines: 30

In article <9007@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> john@quonset.cfht.hawaii.edu (John Kerr) writes:
> Are there any general hints for speeding up a Motif application?  For
> instance, does eliminating the resource file and hard-coding the 
> resources make for faster startup and execution?  

You should be very careful about this decision -- from the user's
point of view, many resources should be configurable and you should
not hard-code values.  The _general rule of thumb_ is: hardcode as
few resources as possible.  *however* it is perfectly reasonable to
hardcode many values and it is not uncommon to do so.  You just need
to be aware of each one and ask yourself, is it reasonable to expect
the user to modify this resource himself?

The answer to your question, on the other hand, is simple.  You are
not going to improve performance or provide any other optimizations
by hardcoding values.  Performance of motif applications seems to be
in the utilization of resources and widgets.  That is, allocating
and freeing large blocks of memory takes time -- anything that you
do *repeatedly* will affect performance.  Converting between text and
XmString's can be expensive if you do it frequently (hint: cache as
much as possible).  Also, some actions seem like they perform reasonably
in small-scale situations (e.g., short lists for list widget or short
text for text widgets), but suddenly performance goes down the drain
when your lists or texts suddenly become large.

--
dan
----------------------------------------------------
O'Reilly && Associates   argv@sun.com / argv@ora.com
Opinions expressed reflect those of the author only.