Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!rws
From: rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: X Toolkit portability
Message-ID: <8905091947.AA17386@expire.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 9 May 89 19:47:13 GMT
References: <8905091758.AA20302@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 34


    "No, no, use the toolkit, it's part of the standard, everyone has it".

I have no idea exactly what question you asked, or exactly what replies
you got, or whether they were from authoritative sources.  Certainly, many
people think of Xt as a "toolkit" of sorts, and that can cause confusion.

    Just went to a seminar on X-Windows here at DECUS and found out

I have no idea why you had to wait until then.  If you have the R3 from
MIT, there is a STANDARDS file at the top of the tree which clearly states
what is and isn't a Consortium standard (e.g. Xt is, Athena Widgets aren't).
This file is also documented in the Release Notes.  If you don't have R3 from
MIT, you haven't done your homework.  If you do have R3 and didn't find this
information, you haven't done your homework.

    Furthermore, attempting to port the
    MIT toolkit to X implementations that don't have it (for instance, DEC
    workstations, of which we have a lot and are getting more) is likely to be
    fraught with difficulties in areas such as file system access.

I'm not sure what the basis for this remark is.  Certainly, we run clients
every day on "DEC workstations", of both the VAX and PMAX variety, using the
Athena Widgets.  Our DEC workstations are Ultrix based.  If you're moving to
VMS, certainly you'll have some work to do, but it shouldn't be that much
(most of the widgets don't touch OS services).

    I understand that standardizing the protocol and Xlib first was
    great for vendors, but it is a pain for application programmers (and even
    worse for users, who still don't have consistent look-and-feel) when they
    don't have a standard to program by.

Then perhaps you should get your organization more involved in standards
efforts.