Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!karlton
From: karlton@decwrl.dec.com (Philip Karlton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: special server mechanism (deemed unnecessary)
Message-ID: <981@bacchus.dec.com>
Date: 12 Dec 88 23:34:00 GMT
References: <8812112322.AA07917@devnull.sun.com>
Organization: DEC Western Software Lab
Lines: 18

In article <8812112322.AA07917@devnull.sun.com> dshr@SUN.COM (David Rosenthal) writes:
>> Part of the toolkit philosophy is that for any resource type there is some
>> value that is guaranteed to work.
>
>What exactly does "guaranteed to work" mean in this context?  Will produce
>intelligible results?  In that case,  something needs to be said about
>the encoding.

I believe that "guaranteed to work" in this case means generates a value
that can be used by the client without risking getting an X error. Yes,
it is true that there are no guarantees in this case that the text is
readable. It is the case however that a well chosen default font by
the server can allow some relief to developers early in the process.

This kind of information (default font choice) does not belong in the
intrinsics layer. Having simple clients work serendipitously is not a bad
idea.

PK