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From: jch@Stardent.COM (Jan Hardenbergh)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Practical Intro to PHIGS (new book)
Message-ID: <1991Apr29.203509.4201@Stardent.COM>
Date: 29 Apr 91 20:35:09 GMT
References: <1442@cvbnetPrime.COM> <1991Apr16.022646.6268@Stardent.COM> <24283@well.sf.ca.us> <1991Apr25.034649.3579@Stardent.COM>
Organization: Stardent Computer, Concord MA
Lines: 47


From: <1442@cvbnetPrime.COM>
> In article <1991Apr25.034649.3579@Stardent.COM>
>  jch@Stardent.COM (Jan Hardenbergh) writes:
> >
> >Deferral and Modification modes are not the penultimate to understanding
> >PHIGS.  They are important to developing a tuned application, granted.
> >So are things like how many structures you use and how big they are, how
> >you navigate in structures, the edit mode you use, where in the
> >structure you edit ( at the end? ).  And, ASAP should probably be the
> >default - let those that know better change it.  We knew when we changed
> >it back at Apollo that niave users would have to learn another thing -
> >but a large customer said jump...
> 
> 	Speaking as one who actually worked on the Apollo PHIGS product
> 	and was actually an employee of the company at the time this 
> 	particular decision was made, just for the record, when I was
> 	trying to figure out what the default deferral mode should be I
> 	initially thought "ASAP" because it came first alphabetically
> 	and I really didn't understand what BNIG, BNIL, and ASTI were
> 	anyway.  Jim Michener however suggested we make the default
> 	WAIT/NIVE on the grounds that it was better to let the application
> 	control when it wanted changes to the picture to occur.  Then
> 	I saw that Graphigs had made the same choice and I felt pretty
> 	confident it was okay.  There was no "large customer" involved
> 	in the decision and in fact there was no "large" domain/PHIGS
> 	customer at that time.
> 
> 		-Tom Gross

As my father always said, never ruin a good story with facts.  I do
remember a conversation with the manager of the PHIGS project at Apollo,
not some measly employee :-).  This conversation was in regards to the
suitability of WAIT as the default deferral mode.  I must admit I was
probably construing too much into the conversation - so I will not
contradict Mr Gross, himself a noted PHIGS lecturer.

However, I do want to know why he insists upon refering to Jim Michener,
one of the "PHIGS Architects" and long time graphics standards guru as
if they were good buddies.  Next, Mr. Gross will be telling us that he
has lunch with and knows all of the PHIGS Architects from HP, Sun and
DEC.  As long as he does not claim to be one of the original PEX
Architects, I can over look a little shameless name dropping :-)

-- 
-Jan "YON" Hardenbergh       jch@stardent.com         (508)-371-9810x261
Stardent Computer, 6 N.E. Tech Center, 521 Virginia Rd,Concord, MA 01742