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From: Nagesh_Pabbisetty.Henr801C@xerox.COM
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: white and black colors in the X server
Message-ID: <".6-Jun-91.11:10:03.EDT".*.Nagesh_Pabbisetty.Henr801C@Xerox.com>
Date: 6 Jun 91 15:10:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 37


Bob,

At the outset, let me thank Mouse, Keith and you for having helped me
understand the implementation. However, I would like to point out some
of the issues that came to light as a result of this exchange.

> You seem so confused ...

	Thanks for the compliments.
	
	The point of counfusion is that it is difficult for anyone other
	than the implementors to understand the implementation when the
	functions and operations have misnomers. If these misnomers are
	documented, the confusion may be reduced somewhat.
	
	The names do not seem to conform to the most basic of Software 
	Engineering practices - enhance the READABILITY of the code.
	Proper naming of routines sure goes a long way in enahancing
	the readability and improving the maintainability of the
	implementation. Considering that the X server is a software 
	package which quite a few programmers are going to use as a 
	base implementation, READABILITY is more of an issue here.
	
	I think I have read all the documentation on the X server that I
	could lay my hands on, but don't recall reading anywhere that
	ddx/mfb and ddx/sun have different understanding of white and
	black. I would like to suggest that these facts be documented in
	the Poting Layer Definition document.
	
	With the kind of naming scheme (without documentation) that has 
	been pointed out, I am not surprised that I am confused. I would be
	surprised if someone isn't!

Cheers!

Nagesh.