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From: jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: Jim Fulton's comments
Message-ID: <3249@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Sat, 30-May-87 03:31:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.3249
Posted: Sat May 30 03:31:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 31-May-87 16:36:53 EDT
References: <12306285733.82.RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU>
Organization: Western Software Technology, Vista, CA
Lines: 34

In article <12306285733.82.RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU>, RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Mark Richer) writes:
> Personally I think the Mac interface is a great success and despite whatever
> shortcomings it possesses, it is clear that Apple put a great deal of effort
> (intelligent and skilled effort) into its development. 

So much so that they view it as a competitive advantage and strongly
proprietary.  So much so that IBM (supposedly, it's all vaporware to me)
decided to mimic the idea of a std interface with their OS/2 Presentation 
Manager, which looks a lot like MS-Windows.

> The research community wants
> to be able to experiment with different user-interface designs 
...
> So my conclusion is that the modularity/layering that NeWS/X provide is 
> nice for allowing experimentation and future innovation. It give vendors
Here, here

> BUt I think that at minimum each vendor should establish clear and thorough
> user interface guidelines (perhaps applications should be certified) so
> at least applications on the same piece of hardware will work in a similar
> way. 

For each system running X, NeWS or whatever, there needs to be a standard
Window Manager supplied, with standard guidelines on the 'right' way to
do it.  As Apple demonstrated, guidelines can be very effectively
communicated using well-designed demos.

Any window system that doesn't have a complete window manager functionality,
guidelines, etc. is as incomplete as a programming language that decides
basic I/O is "implementation dependent".  Yuk!
-- 
	Joel West
	{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww	(ihnp4!gould9!joel if I ever fix news)
	jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu	if you must