Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ll-xn!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ucbvax!maximo.UUCP!mo From: mo@maximo.UUCP.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.windows.news Subject: Confusing Confusion with Technical Issues Message-ID: <8705181811.AA05417@maximo.uucp> Date: Wed, 20-May-87 05:50:33 EDT Article-I.D.: maximo.8705181811.AA05417 Posted: Wed May 20 05:50:33 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 21-May-87 05:45:38 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: world Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 59 From: Date: Mon, 18 May 87 14:11:07 -0400 In Mr. Scheifler's rejoinder to my note criticizing X, he accuses me of being badly confused as to what X really is. Maybe that is so, probably because I can't figure out what it is - it doesn't seem to do anything I want to do, so I admit having trouble understanding it. Oh I understand what various groups pruport it to do, but being an active user of a true window-based platform of a different type, I cannot for the life of me understand what X does that I'm remotely interested in, EXCEPT run across networks. As a person interested in building programs with good interfaces, it doesn't seem to supply a toolkit, instead it provides several, all incompatible. It doesn't seem to supply any particular model for building such interfaces, instead, it provides support for unbounded excess creativity. In remote, isolated "research environments," and places which must support epistemologically incompatible window paradigms, this universality is probably useful. For building anything approaching a "product," i.e., something you can get paid for writing and someone else being willing to use, it is inappropriate. One other person suggested that X was indeed salvation for my complaint about not liking chording, etc., because you could CHANGE IT ALL!! What this will produce is a "portable" "environment" which is equally unusable no matter where you find it. This is what I call "the EMACS effect." Eveyone can use it on THEIR machine, with THEIR customization file, but nowhere else (do YOU understand hyperbole?). As for Mr. Scheifler's comments about everyone adopting X for different reasons, the real reason is that none of the other vendors wanted SUN's name on TWO Unix standards, so when X came along and it seemed competent, ZAP!! Everyone and their dog announced support for X. By Mr. Scheifler's own comments, noone really knows what that means, and everyone wants to improve it, but everyone is supporting this "Industry Standard." At Uniforum in Washington in January, 11 companies "announced support" for X. I know a fait accompli when I see it. So, as technologists are wont to do, it would seem that Mr. Scheifler is confusing technical issues with the real forces that shape the world (read marketplace). These are not decisions based on reason. If so, people would be spending time writing user interface guidelines so random programmers won't inflict their utter lack of taste and aesthetics on Users (ie, the paying customers), instead of running off and building all this stuff bottom-up from the implementation. Besides, if technical issues mattered a whit, noone would be running System V. (grin...) "Quick Sherman, the asbestos!!" -Mike O'Dell abort-and-stay-resident sage and curmudgeon