Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!uflorida!bikini!bb From: bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: X11 for the NeXTstation Message-ID: Date: 16 Jan 91 12:13:57 GMT References: <1991Jan10.020437.14465@cs.mcgill.ca> <17136@csli.Stanford.EDU> <3573@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1117@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Jan12.143514.38@gacvx2.gac.edu> <200@raysnec.UUCP> Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU Organization: /cis/lightning0/bb/.organization Lines: 59 In-reply-to: shwake@raysnec.UUCP's message of 14 Jan 91 17:47:01 GMT bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew)'s original quote: >> Further, remember that any really good idea has to be forced down >> peoples' throats, as compared to being adopted by popular acclaim. I >> am reminded of that quote mentioning the adoption of U*IX as a >> standard being more a matter of chance than anything. In article <200@raysnec.UUCP> shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes: > Since I couldn't find evidence of your tongue-in-cheek, I assume you > really believe this! My experience as a developer is that if you can > only get your ideas adopted by forcing them on the end user, then those > ideas must be crap. Yes, popular acclaim based on premature > understanding or lack of comprehensive information can backfire when > the populace discovers that what they didn't know *could* hurt them. Well, I intended it only partially tounge-in-cheek. That is, it is a cynical and sarcastic comment, but it is mostly true. For proof in one example, remind yourself of all the noise and bluster with technical merit of zero that accompanied the introduction of the NeXT. Truth is, these people realized in some measure what a wonderful and extremely competitive product it is, and therefore how it challenged thier own particular piece of pie. Hence, they rushed to protect themselves by making all sorts of noises with their mouthes, some of which actually succeeded in misleading the newcomer. For example, I have gotten quite a few mail messages asking me about DPS, from people who are morally certain that it only exists and has meaning as an extention to an X server. I try and tell them that that is only the case for the particular example they have run across (primarily DECwindows), but sometimes it takes 3 mail messages to get them to believe me. Another example of a non-problem was the original pricing of floptical disks. Orginally, they were about $50, which is ballpark to the $40 60 Meg cartridge tapes that the rest of the industry uses to distribute workstation software. The fact that they were several times bigger and automounting and immediately browsable with the finder instead of having to be read off with maintenance commands (tar, dd) was another advantage. But no, everyone and thier sister had to scream about pricing... > UN*X succeeded not by chance, but because nothing else has come out > that has offered as comprehensive, extensible and cost-effective a > solution. Nonsense. If this were the case, why is Microsoft so bent on writing their own OS from scratch (OS/2) instead of using U*IX? Why hasn't the window-manager-writing segment of the workstation community recognized the technical superiority and beauty of a device- independent Postscript-based window system like NeWS or NextStep, and at the very least stolen some concepts or features from it? I could complain at length, but I hope you see where I am coming from now. -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb University of Florida Internet: bb@math.ufl.edu