Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!adiron!richf From: richf@adiron.UUCP (Rick Fanta) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Alternatives to the Window System from Planet X Message-ID: <540@adiron.UUCP> Date: 25 Oct 90 16:00:14 GMT References: <34207@nigel.ee.udel.edu>, Distribution: comp.sys.next Organization: PAR Technology, New Hartford, NY Lines: 61 dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Douglas F. DeJulio) writes: >> Also, there is no reason that you couldn't have a PostScript-based X >> window manager. This would give you the best of both worlds. >No, it wouldn't. Having something as huge as X11 combined with a >display postscript would result in something too hideous to >contemplate. Sure, it might run well on an ultra-fast workstation, >but there's no excuse for spending all those resources on what should >be a simple GUI. To improve X11, you need to make it much smaller and >less customizable. >> I really think the NeXTstation looks like a good machine. I might buy >> one. However, I wouldn't buy one if X weren't available. Thanks to >> those who have ported it! And I would certainly buy one if NeXT >> supported X. >Part of my reason for buying a NeXTstation is that it *doesn't* have >X11. NeXT is wisely choosing not to help people use the beast on >their machines. People at NeXT, are you listening? >-- As much as I hate to admit it, I do agree that Next should support X. On a personal level (ie. having a Next at home, or working on an independent project where user interface compatibility isn't important) then I don't care what GUI a machine uses as long as it's fast and easy to program. From a buisness standpoint, however, I probably want a full port of X available. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great machine and Nextstep probably is much better technically and in speed. But we use Suns and Decstations running X around here as do many other people. In fact, our customers (sigh, we're a defense contractor, but please don't hold it against me) are starting to demand X just so that they can run our apps on all their machines. Also, consider the universities that Next is wooing. They probably aren't exclusively Next-based either. Now your asking them to accept and support a machine with a non-standard (albeit, possibly better) interface. That's just adding more work (granted Interface Builder probably is much preferable to working with any Toolkit or widget set under X). Basically, even though the new Nexts may wind up outperforming even machines like Sparcstations (it's quite possible, I'm waiting to see benchmarks, especially floating point), I can't recommend to my bosses that they buy some to replace our more ancient machines. I'm sure the Next wins hands down on price-performance vs. any Sun out today, but if I can't run all of X on it the same as any other machine, it loses out. There maybe some hope, though. Peterd says that someone has done a port of X11R4. I wonder how complete it is. Also, in the new Next "Software and Peripherals" catalog (e.g. third-party stuff) they list a company called Pencom Software as working on a port of X11R4 with (Augh!) Motif that should be available damn soon (4th Qtr, 1990). I still hope to buy a Next within the next year or so for myself. If Next ever decides to support (WELL!) the same stuff that the big boys are going to, then they'll sell a ton of them to businesses like this one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rick Fanta PAR Technologies "... She said that she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use ..." - Elvis Costello