From: fgreco@cfdev1026.shearson.com (Frank Greco)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.open-look
Subject: re: XView
Date: 6 Nov 92 17:49:14 GMT

> > From various industry-wide discussions, it would seem that OLIT is a
> > more attractive library for new development work. 

	try it first...  If you keep on putting pins in your hand,
	you'll eventually put up with the pain too.  Don't let the
	industry-wide discussions *dictate* to you how to solve your
	problems (said with a Perot-twang).

>      If Sun dumps XView, it leaves a large number of XView programmers
> out in the cold.  I use XView and GUIDE for all my window development, 
> and Harris has production software based on XView.  If Sun drops XView,
> we take a serious maintenance and development hit.

	I don't think Keith B. (as well as many other programmers within
	Sun) understands how the average MIS (there... I said it) shop
	thinks and works.  Dropping support for XView is a stupid move
	on their part.  Perhaps the same thing will happen when Sun
	announced that Sunview was going away (I recall they originally
	said by 1988, Sunview would no longer be available), that is
	there will be enuf complaints that XView will be kept afloat
	until folks have migrated to something ... better (OLIT is
	NOT better).

>      I like the XView toolkit, and prefer it to the OLIT style of

	XView is easy, painless and fun.  Yes there are warts, but
	if the toolkit was fixed (a large re-write of the panel and
	panel-items is in order), incorporate slingshots in the
	mainstream, give us a bonafide (and new) interface to
	postscript and give us a *REAL* C++ interface (devguide's C++
	output is... ahem... non-optimal) then we're cooking.

	Someone from Sun told me that they've noticed that there
	are not too many people posting to the Xview-ish net groups
	in comparison to the Xt group which they believe
	indicates a lack of interest in Xview.  Maybe it belies
	the fact that Xview is so easy, folks do not need to ask
	that many questions?

	With apologies to many of my good net friends, Xt-style of
	programming is a poor example of good software engineering
	(imho).  Yes, you can do it if you hold your nose.  But in
	today's commercial environment especially with strong
	competition from the Microsoft's of the world, your
	applications must be functional, attractive and fast.  Xt,
	again imho, does not easy facilitate such applications;  OLIT
	and MoOLIT do not cut the mustard in a modern workstation
	environment.  The application programmers of the world (system
	types can deal with anything... right?) don't deserve Xt.

> programming.  Why is it that when a few people in Sun decide they 
> don't like something, they make these decisions that affects
> thousands of their customers.  They need to remember that code developed
> by just a few developers can result in many workstation sales.  Some 
> of the tools I'm working on in XView will translate to perhaps $100
> million in workstation sales over the next five years or so.

	Again, that's because many of the folks inside of Sun *NEVER*
	worked for an applications (ie, non-computer-vendor) group
	before.  Not a criticism per se, merely an observation.
	As you know, I am very much a believer in Sun (and
	subsidiaries) and have been for a long, long while.  But I
	believe that Sun's current software strategy is become
	extremely fragmented and ill-chosen.

	Now think of how all-encompassing DOE is supposed to be.  Now
	think of the way that TNT/NeWS has been handled.  Think of the
	way this XView situation is being handled.  Think of the
	performance of OpenWindow's X/NeWS server.  Think of the
	floating point performance of the SPARC v.s. the latest HP
	boxes.  Think of the XView panel-list object.  Think of the way
	XView fonts (esp in panels and panel items) and colors are
	handled.  Think about cmdtool/shelltool (not too long, you'll
	get sick) and the underlying TERMSW/TTYSW.  Think about the
	lack of a table object in XView.  Think of the relationship
	between OLIT and Devguide.  Think of the performance of
	the GX wrt OpenWindows; shouldn't things be much faster?.
	Think of the lack of distributed application tools for RPC
	programming.

	I could go on, but the idea is that if Sun wants people to
	use DOE in the future, they are not relaying a feeling of
	confidence to the current technical customer base.

	I wonder what Sun's internal IS staff (CIO Radushel's folks)
	are using for GUI tools.

>      Sun is becoming increasingly unresponsive to the people that made them
> successful: the Unix hackers.  We are the ones who put all the wood behind
> one arrow, as Scott loves to say.  Why is it that now, I feel like Sun
> keeps the arrowhead, and we get the shaft?

	Boy do you have that right!  And they expect us to keep the Unix
	torch burning while MS NT rolls in?

	It's broke.  Start fixing it.

	Frank G.

	- "Remember, you're the boss and they run DOS"
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