From: brunkhorst@mayo.edu (Geoff Brunkhorst)
Subject: Re: Adobe/Sun Announce
Reply-To: brunkhorst@mayo.edu
Organization: Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN. Campus
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 18:13:25 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.162341.25621@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)  
writes:
> Geoff Brunkhorst writes
> 
> > That's not how I remember it.  [...]
> You've missed the press release about DPS NX, then :-).  The DPS NX
> system is an 'agent' - a third process which will take your PostScript
> and send the correct X protocol to the server for you.  Then, the X
> server you are talking to does not need the extension integration.
> Yes, there are performance issues.  But if you cared about that small
> difference in performance, you probably wouldn't have bought X terminals
> in the first place.

I guess I did miss the release.

  As for performance, I think Xterminals are fine for 'fonty' sort of stuff  
now, and less than idealic when dealing with imaging/animation stuff.  DPS with  
X  will just dissuade us from buying more Xterminals for our lower end users  
who would like applications that use DPS NX will cost net/cpu, and  DPS on the  
Server will require more memory, causing performance/price erosion.  What this  
is starting to say is that the xterminal model will eventually erode under the  
X anarchitecture (that is not a misspelling).

At this time, when I limit my clients to an X platform vs. a NeXT, the NeXT  
usually wins, not because of the whizzy things in the background, but the easy  
to use implementation in the foreground.  Adding yet another way of doing
things on the side of X (as an extension, as opposed to a core technology) will  
add yet other inconsistentencies that eventually trickle down to the enduser. 


> Best part is, the Display PostScript client library already knows how
> to talk to an agent for you - your application speaks on API, and
> doesn't have to care if the server has Display PostScript as an
> extension as long as a DPS NX agent is or can be running on your
> network.

Sounds plug and play to me the user, and me the developer, but what about
me the system adminstrator?  Minimally, do these agents magically appear
or do we need to identify them to the clients? 

> > Also, Sun, et al, has to start selling systems to end users.  Ever
> > notice how hard it is to change the font size on an xterm window?
> > Mere mortals can't do it.[...]]
> Well, cheesy apps that don't care about typography can use ATM
> undex X (or the other scalable rasterizers).  If you care about
> typography, you're going to speak PostScript anyway.

The cheesiest apps will define your system to your user.  Until Sun, et al, can  
provide from top to bottom a consistent and easy to use interface, meeting the  
needs of the end user without sysadmins doing cartwheels, then nothing is
really solved.  Sun is getting better about letting the end-user
change his/her own environment, but I don't see it getting more
consistent, therefore getting "too easy".

No flame directed to Adobe, because the bottom line is that Sun has never
impressed me as trying to sell something that is seductive to use or
administer.  Throwing a bit of good technology on their heap is not
going to scare me into dropping NeXT as an development/end-user platform of
choice.

- Geoff
All opinions are my own.  Mayo has no opinion on on this
(in my opinion...).
---------------------------------------------------------------
Geoffrey Brunkhorst, RCF                    brunkhorst@Mayo.edu
Guggenheim 10                                    (507) 284-1805
Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN, 55905 USA     fax (507) 284-5231 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc