Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!dont-send-mail-to-path-lines
From: Erik.Hardy@sei.cmu.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: re: Help on Motif builders
Message-ID: <9101030322.AA07340@gh.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 91 03:22:27 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 67


Let's see...I wrote:

>>But therein lies the 'big win': by shifting the Motif work away from the
>>application and away from the dialogue, the designers responsible for
>>those tasks are free to work their respective magics without having to deal
>>with Xt coding; they work within paradigms that are appropriate to their
>>jobs. Motif (or any other technology) integration and maintenance is, and
>>should be, left to technology experts.

then Martin Brunecky <attc!marbru@bloom-beacon mit edu> wrote:

>   WHAT technology experts are you talking about ?
>   The application writer or the user-interface writer ?

Well, actually, neither. Perhaps you're under the impression that one or the
other *must* perform Motif coding. Application writers have an abysmal
record writing good user interfaces; this is even worse when there are 50
application writers all writing their own UIs and all thinking they own the
screen. Ever look at the UIs in some of the current defense systems?

>   The application writer must know/understand enough about the principles
>   of the Xt user interface methods/style/operation mode to make the
>   user interface writer's job even possible.

In a word, no. The AW need know nothing about the underlying technology, be
it Xt, CORE, Xlib, PHIGS, or whatever.

>   The tool like Serpent is
>   no help to him, because he *should not* even attempt to write UI.

Well, here's something we both agree on, to an extent, i.e., I agree with
the secondary clause in this sentence, but Serpent (or anything else that
shields the AW from the specifics of the UI) can help him by the simple fact
that he need not even consider the UI.

>   The user interface writer is the likely target of Serpent. However,
>   beyond simple test programs, every single application I have seen
>   requires damned well and deep knowledge of Xt, Motif (or another
>   toolkit).

Yes, the UI writer was the primary target, but it requires no knowledge of
Xt, although it does require knowledge of the underlying object system. If
you like, you can think of Serpent as providing a different toolkit than Xt;
however, note that Serpent is not limited to Xt-based object systems: you
could integrate CORE into Serpent if you wanted to, and it wouldn't change
the Serpent language one wit.

>   Using UIMS (like Serpent) DOES increase productivity
>   in some areas, but those are often the 10% of the entire effort
>   (depends great deal on application, I don't happen do design the
>    interfaces to "ls" command).

It has been suggested that, even if there's no other reason, Serpent can
easily be used as a prototyping system, so that one can get a quick look at
the layout and the behavior of a UI. If this is the place where one spends
10% of the entire effort, it can certainly be worth it down the road.

I would never advocate using Serpent to design or implement the UI for
something as simple as the ls command. But, if one was to build a large
system (for instance, an operating system and all of its attendant
utilities), then I would advocate it.

erik

BTW, your Wcl cut-and-paste argument is not convincing, as one could use that
approach no matter what the language.