Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!pandora.pa.dec.com!joel From: joel@pandora.pa.dec.com (Joel McCormack) Newsgroups: comp.windows.news Subject: Re: Window systems should not be substitutes for decent environments Keywords: X11 NeWS C interpreters threads Message-ID: <2406@bacchus.dec.com> Date: 8 Jan 90 05:06:09 GMT References: <13337@granite.BBN.COM> <4458@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <8912162135.AA03025@iris.rand.org> <4290@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <4392@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <2405@bacchus.dec.com> Sender: news@decwrl.dec.com Reply-To: joel@pandora.pa.dec.com (Joel McCormack) Organization: DEC Western Software Laboratory Lines: 43 Now, do we all understand why NeWS is a more powerful idea than X? Because runtime extensibility is good, and it's GUARANTEED by the very definition of NeWS, and it's NOT guaranteed by the very definition of X11. I agree completely runtime extensibility is good. That's why people program in LISP and other such languages and environments. What I'm trying to say is that extensibility is not a problem that every tool in the world should have to address in it own idiosyncratic way. The more various tools try to compensate for basic deficiencies in the programming environment, the more weird interpreted languages I have to learn, and the more entrenched the stupid environment becomes. You can choose, each time you build a tool that you want to be extensible, to include yet another interpreter, for yet another language, in it. Or you can complain that what you'd really like is for EVERY program to have the option of being dynamically linkable to new pieces of code. Sure, you can download PostScript code into a NeWS server. Big deal: (1) PostScript wasn't designed as a programming language that humans should write in, and (2) PostScript was designed for printer speeds, not memory speeds. (And even so, a lot of people at printer companies complain how slow it is to image complicated diagrams with PostScript, and how PostScript semantics makes this especially hard to make fast. The lower resolution of a screen helps some, but not really enough.) Wouldn't you really rather be able to link compiled code into the server dynamically? I don't care about loading mouse-tracking code into the server--today's processors give me quite adequate tracking performance across the network. I'd like to download compiled code that will run fast, like 3-D extensions and image decompression algorithms. NeWS isn't going to do a thing for me, at least not in real time. I can't do this to an X server, either, at least in any portable way. But shouldn't I be able to? Why keep compensating for poor programming environments? You'll just encourage them! - Joel McCormack (decwrl!joel, joel@decwrl.dec.com) (This message brought to you by the C and UNIX are to Computer Science what FORTRAN is to Numeric Analysis Foundation.)