X is/isn't faulty (was Ware Ware Wizardjin)

[Root Boy Jim]

In article <1991Apr14.084432.11937 at thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> mouse at thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse) writes:
?In article <128236 at uunet.UU.NET>, rbj at uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) writes:

?> Device independence?  Hogwash!  Unlike NeWS, the interpreter is in
?> the wrong place.
?
?Partially agreed.  For many applications the ability to download code
?into the server would be a major win; the real problem is that the
?resulting system is much heavier weight.  (If you don't agree, where
?are all the NeWS-terminals?  X-terminals are selling left and right.)

We all know why. Because Sun didn't push it the way they did with NFS.
And because the other vendors were leery of Sun after NFS.

?> Yeah the server swaps bytes, but the client must use the server's
?> pixel sizes, colormaps, etc.
?
?This is orthogonal to your previous sentence.  X made the right choice
?when they specified all coordinates in terms of pixels: until pixels
?are too small to see, you don't want a pixel-independent protocol
?language.  (Which is one reason I don't like PostScript-only printers.)

I don't think so. Forcing the client to think in terms of the server's
pixel dimensions is tyranny. It also precludes use of graphics accelerators
that may be resident on the server because the client can't possibly
understand them.

?As for colormaps, what's your point?  The client has control over the
?contents of the colormap; what more do you want?  (Unless the hardware
?doesn't have dynamic colormaps, in which case you obviously can't get
?it, or the server is exceptionally brain-damaged, and deliberately
?stupid software can be cited on both sides of any argument like this.)

I don't want to have to worry about colormaps. I just want to
draw in color. Let the server do the best it can.

I want the client to be able to say what it wants to do in the
most general terms, and for the server to fill in the blanks.

?This is moving away from UNIX into X, so I'm moving it from
?comp.unix.wizards to comp.windows.x.

I'm moving it back, cuz I don't read comp.windows.x.
Besides, there's little competition here :-)
-- 
		[rbj at uunet 1] stty sane
		unknown mode: sane