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From: korp@atlantis.ees.anl.gov (Peter Korp)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: OW as a PostScript X server...
Message-ID: <1990Nov13.004034.5670@mcs.anl.gov>
Date: 13 Nov 90 00:40:34 GMT
References: <9011121513.AA06367@islanders.> <1990Nov12.221429.23721@crl.dec.com>
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In article <1990Nov12.221429.23721@crl.dec.com> jg@crl.dec.com (Jim Gettys) writes:
>In article <9011121513.AA06367@islanders.>, fgreco@dprg-330.GOVt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco) writes:
>> > 
>> > 	And, no X extensions are involved; you're guaranteed to get PS
>> > 	rendering with OW.
>> > 

[various ramblings deleted]

>The technical problem with the X11/NeWS merged server is the following:
>
>If you want to mix X and PostScript based imaging models (and I know people
>who do, for very good reasons; each imaging model has much to offer the
>application programmer), you have to synchronize the two connections.  This is 
>more than a minor pain to an application programmer in this cicumstances
>(and can be a non-trival performance problem; it basically involves putting
>XSync calls and equivalent everywhere you care about order, which requires
>a server round trip); and comes naturally if you are talking to a server 
>over a single connection.
>

This is only true to a certain extent. If you are only going to do imaging
then no round trip is required. If you wish to use the NeWS input facilities
as WELL AS the X input facilities then the problem you describe becomes an
issue.

>I personally agree that it would be very nice to have a common X PostScript
>extension, that would work no matter what the implementation of X, so that
>applications programmers could count on it.
>

Yes it would, note that nothing prevents the Adobe X-DisplayPostScript extension
from working in OpenWindows, the question is why? It would be fairly easy to
write a translator that understands the X-DP extensions and maps them to NeWS
calls, after all part of X10 was emulated in NeWS 1.1. Performance would be the
only issue.

>And as to the rest of your message, isn't Shearson the brokerage house that
>has taken a big interest in Sun Microsystems? Or is it one of the other
>ones?
>				- Jim

Kind of a cheap shot, no??

I happen to believe that the merging of X and NeWS was done in a much cleaner
fashion than the DP extension to X, but that is just my opinion. Besides at
least with OW I can tune the NeWS side of things to my hearts content, when
will Adobe freely license DP?

Peter

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