Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!SEAS.UCLA.EDU!bilbo.geoff
From: bilbo.geoff@SEAS.UCLA.EDU (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: A couple of comments on the Intrinsics document
Message-ID: <8801062305.AA07851@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 6 Jan 88 22:52:10 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 22

These are a couple of comments on the December toolkit Intrinsics
document which I was asked to post for discussion.  The page references
are to the Postscript output available on the xstuff server.

(1) In Section 5.10, page 16, the class inheritance mechanisms are
    discussed, with an example showing how XtInheritInitialize works.
    However, it is unclear why the example goes through so many
    gyrations.  Why does the first call do special processing
    that will only be executed the first time (since the pointer
    to the inherit routine is replaced with the superclass's
    routine)?  Also, why is the XtClass field replaced with the
    superclass, but only on this first call?

(2) Section 15.1 discusses the command line parsing facilities.  While
    I really have no objection to the toolkit's reinvention of the wheel, I
    must strongly object to the current design which forces this
    ill-conceived, nonstandard, and incompatible argument-processing
    philosophy on everyone who wants to use the toolkit.  At LEAST
    make it an option so people who want to sell standard software
    can bypass it, even if it is inconvenient.

	Geoff Kuenning	geoff@lcc.ucla.edu	geoff@ITcorp.com