Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!jim
From: jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: xinit lacks init in it (FLAME!)
Message-ID: <8809021533.AA04630@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 2 Sep 88 15:33:10 GMT
References: <4479@mtgzz.att.com>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: X Consortium, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 38


> It is called a "SHELL"! Try it. You'll like it.

I have.  And for some things I do.

However, end users justifiably don't want anything to do with it.  That's
why developing good tools for building quality User Interfaces is such
an important area of development. 


> [a kludgy script that should have used xrdb and a set of aliases]
>
> This works perfectly, giving me exactly the server and clients I put in it.

You can understand it, but the vast majority of end users would barf if they
were told that they had to do something like that.  Instead, they want a 
simple, convenient way to restart their world in a nice state and shut it down
when they are done.  All without having to do any UNIX garbage.


> Correction: most people use [xinit] only because they don't understand
> UNIX, which has to do with knowing what tools are available,
> and using the right tool for the job.

Or they want a little more robustness than an ugly hack will give them.  


> To us tool-users, the very existence of an "xinit" is proof that not 
> everyone plays with a full toolbox.

Right, because it is woefully inadequate.  Session managers will make life
much nicer.

There are several key points to remember:

    1.  X is not UNIX-specific.
    2.  Programmers are no longer the most important group of UNIX users,
	end application customers are.