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From: ghemawat@svax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Using MIT X window-system
Message-ID: <894@svax.cs.cornell.edu>
Date: Sun, 18-Jan-87 13:59:52 EST
Article-I.D.: svax.894
Posted: Sun Jan 18 13:59:52 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Jan-87 06:05:06 EST
References: <502@daimi.UUCP>
Reply-To: ghemawat@cornell.UUCP (Sanjay Ghemawat)
Distribution: world
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept., Ithaca NY
Lines: 42


I have been using X for two or three months.

Advantages:
	1) Easy to write window based applications - provides a very
	   simple interface.
	2) Works over a network, so you don't have to run your
	   applications on a workstation.
	3) The window system has been implemented on a large number of
	   different workstations (including VAXStations, IBM RT's,
	   SUN's, ...). In a recent draft, one of the designers of X
	   said that X had been ported to more hardware than any other
	   window system he was aware of.
	4) You are not tied down to a particular window manager - the
	   guy who moves your windows around, resizes them... There
	   are several window managers in the distr. and you can
	   write your own if you want to.

Disadvantages:
	1) It might be slow at times because all window system calls
	   are routed to the server through a socket (on unix).
	2) At the moment, there is no standard toolkit for things
	   like buttons, scrollbars, etc. However, Version 11 of X
	   (due in March) is supposed to provide an extensible toolkit
	   containing objects like buttons, scroll bars, labels, menus,
	   edit-windows...
	3) Security is not enforced very strictly. The server maintains
	   a list  of hosts from which it can accept connections. Any
	   user on any of these hosts can connect to the display. V 11
	   will provide hooks for implementing more security.
	4) It does not provide 3D primitives. 3D primitives will also
	   be absent from V 11, but a facility will exist for extending
	   V11 X, so interested parties should be able to write their
	  own 3D extensions to X.

There is a mailing list for X windows (requests for addition should
be sent to xpert-request@athena.mit.edu). You might want to hold out on this,
because they are thinking of starting a newsgroup and discontinuing  the
mailing list.

-Sanjay Ghemawat		(ghemawat@wrath.cs.cornell.edu)
 Cornell University