Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!occrsh!uokmax!apple!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!SHAMASH.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@SHAMASH.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Why do so many "great" people dislike X?
Message-ID: <9009090115.AA08160@shamash.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 9 Sep 90 01:15:33 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 91

>> A particular stumbling block is implementing policy through a
>> separate window manager process, which adds some heavy burdens in
>> communication and synchronization among client processes, the
>> display server, and the window manager.  I think a better way to do
>> this is to make policy arbitration a central module within the main
>> display server process, more like a ddx component than a client
>> program.

> I strongly agree.  What is needed is a higher level User Interface
> System/Server than handles everything.

The major problem with this is lack of configurability.  I certainly
wouldn't be using X right now if it mandated someone else's idea of a
nice interface by building the window manager into the server, as you
seem to be advocating.  (I have never, ever, seen a UI policy ("window
manager") I could stand to use for long, except for ones I've
implemented myself.  I daresay this extreme a reaction is rare, but
there are doubtless plenty of people who are happy with none of the
available UI styles but find them tolerable and merely grumble.)

> To me it isn't any surprise that the existing systems in use by large
> numbers of end users are the Mac and Windows 3.0.  [...]  The
> solutions out there for the masses give the end user a top-down
> approach, and therefore a more warm fuzzy feeling of security.

What do you want X to be?  Would you rather it be popular, or useful?
(Okay, so that's a loaded question. :-)

If you prefer, think of X as a framework for building window systems
(with none currently built).  It would not be infeasible to build an
interface with a Macish L&F on X; certain setups of twm I've seen in
use come close already.  The real advantage of X is that *the user
isn't locked in* to the Finder, or PM, or whatever style of interaction
happened to be all the rage that week.

> They are consistent in appearance, and plug/play correctly.

This is not impossible under X.  If you restrict yourself to Motif
clients, they will all be consistent and will interoperate nicely;
likewise if you stick to OL[%].  The problems start when you try to
mix-and-match; the reason this isn't seen in the Mac world (for
example) is that it's *impossible* to mix-and-match there.

[%] I assume.  I have used neither Motif nor OL enough to know whether
    this is actually true.  But if it's not, they're certainly being
    overblown on the net.

> And are easy to setup and modify.

Ha hahaha!  My first reaction when I saw a Mac screen was "how do I get
it out of reverse video?".  As far as I can tell, even that fundamental
configuration is impossible.  (Or rather, it is impossible with the
Apple-supplied tools.  Having seen Stepping Out, it is obvious it would
be possible to do.  But I have never even heard of its being done, and
feel quite certain it is not supported, and likely even would require
using undocumented interfaces.)

My second request would be to get rid of the title bars.  Right, that's
not easy either.

Run that by me again about how it's easy to set up and modify?

(Windows 3.0, whatever that is, I have had no experience with, except
perhaps seeing it in use once without knowing what I was looking at.)

> It would be nice if that was more the norm in the X world.

Under X, on the other hand, getting things out of reverse video verges
on the trivial[$].  Getting rid of the title bars involved a few days'
programming, with a set of tools[#] that's reasonably well documented.

[$] mit/clients/bitmap is an exception; that's part of the reason I
    never use it.  Fortunately such clients are almost universally
    considered defective.

[#] I'd say `toolkit', but when discussing X, that's a technical term
    whose meaning does not apply here.

> There is no reason that X could have not gone on this path in the
> past.  [In fact I have developed a system with this philosophy on X.]

You said it yourself.  As I said above, if "window system" implies a
mandated consistent L&F, then X is a framework for building window
systems.

Tools not rules - and if you want to implement rules, be our guest.

					der Mouse

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