Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!spectral!sjs From: sjs@spectral.ctt.bellcore.com (Stan Switzer) Newsgroups: comp.windows.news Subject: Re: Window systems should not be substitutes for decent environments Keywords: X11 NeWS C interpreters threads Message-ID: <18759@bellcore.bellcore.com> Date: 8 Jan 90 14:28:25 GMT References: <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@bellcore.bellcore.com Reply-To: sjs@bellcore.com (Stan Switzer) Organization: Bellcore Lines: 53 In article <2405@bacchus.dec.com> joel@decwrl.dec.com (Joel McCormack) writes: > From the types of arguments offered for NeWS recently in this group, I > must conclude that you guys all write ``real'' programs in Forth, yes? > It's interpreted, extensible, uses RPN, etc. No, you probably all > program in C, and many would defend its use technically (ugh). Well not this guy, that's for sure. C is a great language for writing interpreters. That's about it. > A window system is not the place to put support for dynamic loading, > concurrency, OO programming, etc. Instead, a window system should be > able to use all these things if they are provided by a decent > environment. Most of the points about NeWS's ``technical superiority'' > are really complaints about UNIX and C in disguise. Even allowing that this is true, and I think that it just might be, a solution is a solution. My dreadful UNIX/C environment isn't going to change for many a moon, but I can use the powerful features you mention (dynamic loading, concurrency, OO programming) and a few you don't (PostScript imaging model, high level execution abstraction--I'd settle for Scheme w/ OO extensions instead of PostScript RPN, minimal UI code in windowing client, rapid prototyping, dynamic modification of environment, powerful event distribution scheme, (almost) reflective programming language, etc.). The UNIX/C world suffers from least-common-denominatorism of the worst kind. Look at the Widget implementation. I mean, sure it's brilliant, but it should never have been done in C. Maybe Andrew had the right idea: a special preprocessor. Or maybe it should have been done in C++. Or maybe Objective-C. NeWS threatens to raise the denominator. True, it doesn't solve everybody's problems, but it does help solve the problems of the UI programmer. > You should > certainly complain that your programming language and environment > doesn't give you support for the kinds of things you want to do, but > don't get confused and complain that the lack of such support is a > problem inherent to X. OK, maybe I'm confused. Let's say that I had the power of the Mach OS, plus a windowing server with a powerful imaging model, plus a reasonable programming language. Then I might just be convinced. BUT: That OS isn't UNIX. That server isn't an unextended X. And that language isn't C. Maybe I should buy a NeXT? Stan Switzer sjs@bellcore.com ``I can't see the end of me / My whole expanse is all I see I formulate infinity / And store it deep inside me.'' -- Meat Puppets