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From: fgreco@govt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Why do so many "great" people dislike X?
Message-ID: <9009071813.AA04208@islanders.>
Date: 7 Sep 90 18:13:19 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 33

>I have a question for thos who dislike X:
>
>        What have they developed thats better!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>I have to agree that X windows is not a perfect piece of software engineering, but its the
>best we currently have available that will work on almost any hardware. It is always
>much easier to be a critic  than it is to produce something thats better.
>
>My hat is off to those at MIT that have produced a usable window environment! It may not
>be perfect, but can you claim that the code that you write is?


Bill,
	The guys at MIT are doing a fantastic, if not unbelievable, job with X.
	No one, I believe, is criticizing their efforts.  I think people are
	criticizing the X design philosophy, which anyone is entitled to do.
	...heck, criticism happens every microsecond in every newsgroup on the net! ;->

	As far as "better" (he says with a sly objective look on his face),
	have you looked at NeWS?  Its available on almost as many 
	platforms as X and is much more programmable (the server, that is) than X,
	and can inherently handle Postscript (ie., its *not* an extension).

	I might also add that one of Dennis Ritchie's colleagues, Rob Pike, who also
	dislikes X Window, (I'm paraphrasing here, but Rob was quoted as saying X was
	baroque and overly complicated) has invented some fundamental graphics algorithms 
	that are used in practically all modern window systems and has developed
	several interesting window systems within AT&T Bell Labs.

	Please...I'm not trying to start window flames, but aren't we science folk supposed
	to question and criticize and opinionize?  That's the nature of research.

Frank G.