Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!pyramid!voder!blia!blipyramid!mao
From: mao@blipyramid.BLI.COM (Mike Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Why I'm suspicious of X
Message-ID: <61@blipyramid.BLI.COM>
Date: 18 Feb 88 19:27:10 GMT
References: <1684@desint.UUCP>
Organization: Britton Lee, Inc.
Lines: 46

In article <1684@desint.UUCP>, geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes:
> The biggest flaw with X, of course, is its baroque complexity.
> ...  This goes on and on, until there are over 100 routines ...

as someone doing non-trivial user interface stuff under X11, i agree with you.
what i find worst of all is the set of parameters i have to pass to Xlib
routines -- by the eigth or ninth "cmap_def_return", i forget where i am,
and have to count commas to find my place.

still, i don't think this makes X11 a horrible protocol.  windowing systems,
particularly hardware-independent ones, are hard.  X11 has some nice
abstractions, and frees me as a programmer from worrying about the hardware
i'm running on (most of the time, anyway).  i had the same problem learning
the macintosh toolkit -- i had post-it notes all over the place and kept
_inside_macintosh_ open constantly.  given my willingness to do that, i wrote
some nifty programs.

my view?  i don't think there's a "best windowing system."  there are
windowing systems that do what i want, and others that don't.  i'll choose
the one that suits me best when i need one.

> Try drawing a 5x5 circle of linewidth 2 on the X11 sample server -- you
> get a pentagon.

he's right; i presume the protocol people at mit and the consortium are
listening?  most problems of this sort will vanish, though, when commercial
implementations are available.  X11 is young, yet.

> The NeWS/X war is going to be won in the marketplace, not on the technical
> front.  I think I see a lead for X, because the variety of companies that
> support it is larger.

we chose X11 for development here because of its widespread support.  mit
and company did the right thing in making the source available early, and for
free.  one caveat, though:  as long as Xlib calls are so arcane, training
programmers to use it is going to be tough.  a simpler interface *must* be
developed.  personally, i don't think Xtk is it, but this isn't the place for
that discussion.  i do urge the X11 consortium to consider not just *user*
interface standards, but a simpler *programmer's* interface.  my Xlib manual
is getting pretty dog-eared.
					mike olson
					britton lee, inc.
					...!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!blia!mao
					olson@ucbvax.berkeley.edu

these opinions do not necessarily represent those of my employer.