Ware Ware Wizardjin

[Paul Barton-Davis]

In article <1991Apr9.020525.13001 at mtxinu.COM> ed at mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould) writes:

>It is true that X has largely become a de facto standard.  What
>that should mean, really, is that the X *protocol* has become
>standard.  It also happens to mean that the current X *implementation*
>has become standard.  That's where I have problems accepting X.
>The current implementation is too large and too slow.  There is no
>good technical reason that a small, efficient X server couldn't be
>written.  The same is, to a somewhat lesser degree, true of the
>client code and toolkits.

I remember thinking when X and NeWs where still battling for the
console that its a tragedy that X could not have learnt more from the
PostScript world, and used cheap protocol requests. The classic
example I can remember was "how many bytes does it take X or NeWs
to ask for a 720 point `A' to be displayed ?" The implementation,
well, I don't enough about graphics h/w to comment. But the protocol
itself is responsible for sucking so many of the cycles this group
has been complaining about.

-- 
Paul Barton-Davis			<pauld at cs.washington.edu>
UW Computer Science Lab		``to shatter tradition makes us feel free''