Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!news.uu.net!dkwgate!einstein.dkw.com!jr From: jr@einstein.dkw.com (J.R. Jesson) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: mwm - impossible task? (Now Long) Message-ID: <1991May22.155819.13389@dkwgate.uucp> Date: 22 May 91 15:58:19 GMT References: <1991May16.143406.6111@dkwgate.uucp> Sender: news@dkwgate.uucp (NewsSoftware) Organization: DKW Systems Corporation Lines: 54 In article harkcom@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp (Alton Harkcom) writes: >In article <1991May16.143406.6111@dkwgate.uucp> jr@einstein.dkw.com > (J.R. Jesson) writes: > > Since when does one consider the 'hard-work' put in by the designers >when considering customer satisfaction. They get paid to produce a product >that will please the CUSTOMER, not themselves. ... Sorry, the way you put it didn't sound like humor. I wasn't saying that the customer should necessarily excuse the responsible organization because its programmers put in hard work. I WAS saying that if a company produces a bad product, its usually not (*just*) the programmers fault. If mwm, as an example, is a pig, part of that fault goes to management, part goes to the system architects, and part goes to the programmer. This doesnt make anybody "scum" (which I read as incompetence or dishonesty). >...My company paid it's money >and has gotten very little satisfaction out of using mwm (other than the >pretty frames) but has had plenty of hassles do mwm's failings. It is a >commercial product yet it is frequently being compared disfavorably to >pds products. ... Sigh, I cant believe I'm acting as an apologist for @!#$ Motif, but here goes... Your company either (1) paid alot of money to take part in a development effort - to join monetarily with a consortium of organizations, or (2) paid the handling costs for distributing source. Either way, your company accepted the liability of working with essentially beta software. You are plain screwed if you think you bought a mature product. No doubt, Motif has a distance to go towards stability (The headers on my mwm source say it's beta!), But, at least for the class of products on which we are now working on it does provide a good model for Computer-Human interaction, has good (getting better) internationalization, is supported on a variety of platforms, and has good promise for future growth and enhancement. If these factors are not important to you, you should look elsewhere for a windowing environment. >...With the attitude that 'designer' is king, one merely sets >oneself (and possibly the market) up for a big fall... Right. A good point. I never ment to imply that the designer was king of this product. However in balance to this statement, I offer J.R.'s corollary #192: "too may cooks spoil the software." >Al J.R. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DKW Systems Corporation 4050 INFOMART 1950 Stemmons Freeway,