Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!soleil!mlb.semi.harris.com!trantor.harris-atd.com!trantor!chuck From: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: Xview - what do you think? Message-ID: <5492@trantor.harris-atd.com> Date: 13 Feb 91 15:15:41 GMT References: Sender: news@trantor.harris-atd.com Reply-To: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) Distribution: comp Organization: Advanced Technology Dept, Harris Corp, Melbourne, FL Lines: 43 In article , tree@sadye.uvm.edu (Tom Emerson) writes: > Sorry if this is a FAQ, but I'm interested in hearing (reading?) > peoples views towards XView, specifically in relation to its ease of > use and performance. I'm working on a large application which must > have a good interface. Is Xview the way to go? I would rather not > spend the time making modifications to Athena Widgets... I use XView for all my windowed tools, and am very happy with it. I've never coded with a different toolkit, so couch my remarks appropriately. In my book, the best combination is Sun's Devguide interface builder and XView. I can produce fairly complex interfaces, ready to be bolted to application code, in just a few hours. As an example, a Harris division needs an interface to a weather radar control system. I sat with them for about two hours, talking out the interface details, and then fired up Devguide. Three hours later, I had a complete interface, with seven popup dialogs and a base window with three canvases for rendering weather views. Within a 24 hour time frame, the radar guys signed off on the interface. The only work left is to attach the specific application code to the various buttons and widgets and write the reams of documentation :-( I do this with my other tools, too, like Catcher and Contool. Devguide costs $250/site license, and XView is free, so I figure I recouped the software investment (figuring loaded professional salaries) in about 90 minutes of use. My general rule of thumb is that Devguide yields a 10X productivity increase, in general. Since I came from the world of SunView, XView is a very natural environment for me. I find it easy to remember the attribute "language" used to build and manipulate widgets. On the other hand, I can NEVER remember the Xlib routine definitions without my handy "X in a Nutshell" book from O'Reilly. NOTE: Devguide is the new "Official" name of Sun's GUIDE interface builder. -- Chuck Musciano ARPA : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com Harris Corporation Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912 AT&T : (407) 727-6131 Melbourne, FL 32902 FAX : (407) 729-3363 A good newspaper is never good enough, but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever. -- Garrison Keillor