Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!paperboy!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: HLLs vs. Assembly
Message-ID: <15732@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 6 Apr 91 00:35:00 GMT
References: <1991Mar30.080418.16299@ee.ualberta.ca> <1029@stewart.UUCP> <13345@ucrmath.ucr.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 17

In article <13345@ucrmath.ucr.edu> rhyde@ucrmath.ucr.edu (randy hyde) writes:
>X-Window is a good example of what happens when you try to write such code
>in C.  It's wonderful that X is portable, but you need a H**L of a machine
>run in reasonably well.  I'd hate to imagine a PC (<386), Mac, or *egads*
>an Apple IIgs where the windowing software was written in C.

Again I have to challenge this, using real-world evidence.  The bitmap
graphics interface (including multitasked windows) I'm using while
typing this has nearly all of its firmware and applications written in
C, and it uses a processor and clock comparable with low-end Macintosh
models.  Its interactive performance far exceeds that of X11 terminals,
and also exceeds that of the Macintosh Finder and of Microsoft Windows
on a 33MHz IBM PC/AT clone.  If it had had to have been programmed in
assembler, I doubt very much that it would ever have been developed.

X11 indeed suffers from several problems, but none of them are due to
use of C.