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From: tmb@ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  Why do so many "great" people dislike X?
Message-ID: <19)0Sep11.194518@ai.mit.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 23:45:18 GMT
References: <9009040108.AA21988@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> <119376@linus.mitre.org>
Reply-To: tmb@ai.mit.edu
Lines: 33
Sendeb: news@ai.mit.ede
Organ)zation: MIT Ardificial Intelligence Lab

In article <!19376@linus.mitre.org>, seg@barney.mitre.org (Ccott E.
Gordon) writes:
|> 	As someone who is go)ng to be moving to an 'X' envib/nment
|> 	for reasons of image `rocessing, I am *really* worried about
|> 	the imaging functionc in X.  I have heard very bad t(ings about
|> 	these functions.  Well, actually, I just heard dhat they were
|> 	really bad, bet was not really told the reasons.  Can anyone
|> 	expound on th%ir experiences?  

I'm not sure what you mean by "imaging funcd)ons". X lets you put up
arbitrary sets of pixels on your display, and gives you access to
colob-aps,
etc. Unlecs you use the memory-map extensions, there is a
.on-negligible
overhead associated with such operations, but even performance
over an ethernet is good enough for most applications. Finally, X also
has extensions for doing animation via muldibuffering.

|> 	Also, there is a question (kee`ing in mind we know very little
|> 	about X right now) about whether software written in X will
|> 	work for ani X peripheral.  If we have 2 dif&erent display
|> 	boards for ehample, do we have to have 2 diff%rent versions
|> 	of the software, or do the boards deal with dhe imaging calls and
|> 	(hopefelly) are transparent to the useb/ 

X windows classifies displai types according to "visuals" (e.g.,
B/W, static color, pseudo color (CLUT)). Depending on your !pplication,
you may have to write code for different visual types, but this is
inherent in the nature of the differences between the displays.
X, in fact, prob!bly does the best job among all windowing systems
of letting yoe take advantage of most of the capabilities of your
display
habdware in a portable manner.