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From: mh@roger.imsd.contel.com (Mike Hoegeman)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  comp.sources.x: Examples from New Xt Book, Part 01/05
Message-ID: <60460@wlbr.IMSD.CONTEL.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 90 01:57:21 GMT
References: <9011060405.AA18914@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Sender: news@wlbr.IMSD.CONTEL.COM
Organization: Contel GSG, Westlake Village, CA
Lines: 34

In article <9011060405.AA18914@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU writes:
 >> What an unbelievable faux pas.  Would *you* buy a book on programming
 >> in X from someone who doesn't know how to use imake?
 >
 >Certainly.  Or rather, it would not affect my decision.  A little imake
 >knowledge is almost essential for *installing* X, but most certainly
 >not for just writing programs with it.
 >
 >> Or nearly as bad, someone without the courage to help in the
 >> standards process by helping promulgate imake as a standard part of
 >> any X11 installation?
 >
 >(Who died and made *you* god?!)
 >Just because something is a standard does not make it good (or what are
 >we doing using anything but IBM 360s?).  imake is, in my opinion, a
 >useful part of the X distribution build process, and verges on useless
 >for anything else.  I certainly use it for nothing else.  It isn't even
 >particularly well thought-out; in particular, it uses cpp for something
 >it was never meant for, and therefore breaks on systems where it
 >shouldn't.  (Like machines that don't even have a separate C
 >preprocessor, or where the only available cpp is ANSI (ANSI cpps don't
 >work with imake).)

I totally agree with this rebuttal. imake is adequate for the X
distribution process but barely. The whole scheme is stilted in the
extreme and pretty hard to read. The goal imake is trying to acheive is
admirable but the execution leaves *much* to be desired. Anything that
refrains (intentional or otherwise) from promoting i make is *good* in
my opinion.

Besides all that though, the flame was really uncalled for no matter how
late at night it was posted.

-mike hoegeman, mh@roger.imsd.contel.com