Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!smoke.cs.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!moraes
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
From: moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes)
Subject: Re: Why do so many "great" people dislike X?
Message-ID: <90Sep6.182116edt.558@smoke.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: <9009041354.AA03267@armory> <1990Sep4.202433.19653@wrl.dec.com> <1990Sep4.203701.18657@crl.dec.com> <1@uarthur.UUCP>
Date: 6 Sep 90 22:22:19 GMT
Lines: 29

wds@uarthur.UUCP (William D. Sheppard) writes:
>I have a question for thos who dislike X:
>	What have they developed thats better!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Um, in this case, each of the three would claim their window system
was "better".  More specifically,

1. Do you have an alternative window system?

2. What do I have to do to get a working set of binaries for my system?

3. What hardware will I need to run it on?
3a. How easy would it be for me to port it to my nonstandard machine?

4. Does it support colour properly?
4a. Does it have a functional terminal emulator (emulating some
popular or standard terminal) with cut and paste?
4b. Is it possible to write programs that are portable across different
architectures, especially architectures with different byte/bit order?

5. What sort of support can I get and how much does it cost?

The answers to these questions often determine the fate of a window
system far more than its "pure technical" merits.  Having it not crash
you is probably a desirable feature.

	Mark.
PS:  People might observe that some of these questions could be asked about
a lot of software, not just window systems.