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From: mouse@lightning.mcrcim.mcgill.EDU (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: What's the disadvantage of X Window ?
Message-ID: <9105160040.AA05160@lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 16 May 91 00:40:11 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28

> I have heard that the event-driven nature of the X Window System
> makes it unsuitable for real time graphics applications.  Has anybody
> had any experience in this area that would support or dispute this
> claim?

X is generally unsuitable for time-critical operations.    But the
reason has little to nothing to do with its event-driven nature; the
reason is simply that by the nature of the spec, it cannot make timing
promises.  Someone may have created an implementation that promises
useful time bounds, and such a version may be of use for time-critical
applications.  But I know of no such.

And in any case, this does not imply that it is unusable in real-time
applications, only that the real-time part must not depend on X.  For
that matter, most UNIX systems (UNIX being, in some sense, the "native"
operating system for X) are badly suited to real-time work; I know, I
was involved in building the operating system interface for a robot
control system with a 28-millisecond cycle time.

But there is absolutely nothing wrong with using X in non-time-critical
parts of real-time applications, any more than there is anything wrong
with using stdio, or curses, or any other such library.  The same
cautions apply, but that's all.

					der Mouse

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