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Re: [TCLUG:3372] More chatter about X



On Fri, Jan 15, 1999 at 12:59:42PM -0600, Eric Hillman wrote:
...
> 	I think that it ought to be pointed out (if no-one else has yet), that "X"
> is really more like a protocol than a piece of software, and there are
> better and worse implementations of that protocol -- XFree86, MetroX,
> AcceleratedX, Reflection X, ad infinitum.
> 	I, for one, *love* X, because it makes it easy to manage all my servers
> here at work from one workstation.  True client-server is really the
> greatest strength of X.  Things like resource use, graphics performance and
> font rendering are really implementation- and hardware-dependent, not
> internal to X itself...  That seems to me rather akin to blaming sendmail
> for spelling mistakes.

If you can come up with a good way to implement anti-aliased fonts within
the current X mechanism for drawing fonts, that would be quite an 
accomplishment.  In fact, anti-aliased anything is impossible in X without
resorting to doing most the work client-side in the application, which means 
a lot of traffic to the X server.

> 	I think a lot of complaints about X arise simply from not understanding
> what X really *is*, or the environment in which it was designed to work.
> It's definitely a complicated system (although the config tools that have
> come out in the last couple years are a major help), and parts of it are
> downright Byzantine.  But it is also tremendously powerful and flexible in
> was that outstrip any other GUI I've ever used.

And a lot of complaints are completely valid.  If X stands still like
it is now, we may as well throw it away and move to something that can
provide better features.  Right now, though, nothing even comes close.
And in the next few years, it's not likely anything well.

Hopefully XFree86 will add many enhancements, because the Open Group's
commitment to enhancing X at all is highly doubtful.

--
Shawn T. Amundson               
amundson@gimp.org               http://www.gimp.org/~amundson

"The assumption that the universe looks the same in every
 direction is clearly not true in reality." - Stephen Hawking