Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!stowe.cs.washington.edu!pauld From: pauld@stowe.cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Ware Ware Wizardjin Message-ID: <1991Apr9.182340.17436@beaver.cs.washington.edu> Date: 9 Apr 91 18:23:40 GMT References: <9104072151.AA28702@gaia> <1991Apr9.020525.13001@mtxinu.COM> Sender: news@beaver.cs.washington.edu (USENET News System) Reply-To: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle Lines: 23 In article <1991Apr9.020525.13001@mtxinu.COM> ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould) writes: >It is true that X has largely become a de facto standard. What >that should mean, really, is that the X *protocol* has become >standard. It also happens to mean that the current X *implementation* >has become standard. That's where I have problems accepting X. >The current implementation is too large and too slow. There is no >good technical reason that a small, efficient X server couldn't be >written. The same is, to a somewhat lesser degree, true of the >client code and toolkits. I remember thinking when X and NeWs where still battling for the console that its a tragedy that X could not have learnt more from the PostScript world, and used cheap protocol requests. The classic example I can remember was "how many bytes does it take X or NeWs to ask for a 720 point `A' to be displayed ?" The implementation, well, I don't enough about graphics h/w to comment. But the protocol itself is responsible for sucking so many of the cycles this group has been complaining about. -- Paul Barton-Davis UW Computer Science Lab ``to shatter tradition makes us feel free''