More why [not] X?

[Mike McDonald]

>Date: Thu, 22 May 97 22:47 PDT
>From: Patrick Logan <patrickl@servio.gemstone.com>
>To: Chris.Bitmead@alcatel.com.au
>Subject: More why [not] X?
>
>>>>>> "Chris" == x22068  <Chris> writes:
>
>    Chris> Let me propose that X is good at what it does, and good for
>    Chris> building whatever higher level abstractions on top you
>    Chris> might like. If you don't use X, you'll have to roll your
>    Chris> own anyway, so why not use it?
>
>We'll have to disagree that X is good at anything.

  Let's just agree to disagree on that one.

>Rather than X or rolling a new one, there are several efforts underway
>at creating a "better X than X" for Linux.

  See, we're not the only fools, I mean, dreamers, around. :-)

>And to sound like a brokern record that others have been playing too
>(such as Kelly), there's a cost/benefit to supporting HTTP,
>etc. rather than (or at least before) the X protocol.

  X does have the advantage of already running under Linux and it does
support some apps that I'd like to continue using in the short term.
(Xemacs, knews, xmh) HTML as it stands today is not general enough to
be the entire windowing system. As soon as someone can convince me
that it is practical to implement Emacs in HTML, then I'll be
converted. Until then, X is just as good as any of the alternatives so
I'm going to continue using it. (I don't for a second purpose that we
implement an X server in lisp.)

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com