From: preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.open-look
Subject: Re: SunSoft Windows Toolkits Positioning
Date: 19 Nov 92 15:28:37 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Motorola MCG, Urbana Design Center

In article <l2lco1v@openlook.Unify.Com> fgreco@cfdev1026.shearson.com (Frank Greco) writes:

| > Perhaps more than just the "Xt is the de facto standard for GUI development" 
| > sense, I took it to be a reference to the fact that the OLIT API is being 
| > formally standardized (er, STANDARDIZED) by the IEEE.  (Apart from P1295.2 
| > work, IEEE P1201.1 has gone on record as saying that their window-system-
| > independent toolkit API only considers Xt-based toolkits of interest, so 
| > they're working with OLIT, not Xview or TNT.)
---
Actually, this is no longer true.  P1201.1 spent a long time trying to
get a POSIX-like merging of the OLIT and OSF/Motif APIs and ultimately
accepted the reality that no consensus was possibly in that framework (I
will tactfully omit any personal opinions on why and who).  We changed
course almost two years ago and are now working on a uniform API for
windowing user interfaces, specifying an API intentionally designed to
be layerable on top of as wide a range of existing GUI toolkits as
possible.  We have had technical contributions from people associated
with XVT, Galaxy, both OIs, Wndex, Wcl, THINGS, TAE+, and others;
a subset of the XVT API is our base document, but several of the other
toolkit APIs are reference documents and we are trying very hard to be
inclusive.  The plan specifically requires us to consider
implementability on top of OLIT, OSF/Motif, PM, Windows, and Macintosh.

Ironically, with respect to this discussion, we are working on a
language-independent API specified as objects and attributes, very much
in the style of XView (though we have cut our objects somewhat
differently).

Also, the comment about P1295.2 seems to be completely off the track;
P1295.2 *is* OLIT and P1295.1 is OSF/Motif, so I don't understand the
"Apart from P1295.2" part of the sentence at all.
---
|...
| A suggested standard is just that, a *suggestion*.  Thanks, but no
| thanks.
---
There are quite a few companies doing in-housse development who are
quite attached to the freedom that open systems give them and consider
standards to be important.  The government, of course, also supports
open systems and NIST has issued an Application Portability Profile that
suggests using a platform independent toolkit for portability.  A NIST
staffer is a regular participant in the P1201.1 work group, as are
several people sent by very large corporations who support open systems.
---
|
| Besides, can anyone honestly say that an Xt-based toolkit can be "sold"
| to the PC programming community to use with MS Windows or MS NT?
| Anyone want to sell an Xt-based programer toolkit to the Macintosh
| community?
---
Neither Microsoft nor Apple has really addressed the question of what
you do when your applications need to run in heterogeneous, distributed
environments.  Many of us expect heterogeneous, distributed environments
to be a growing segment of the computing market.  It's not at all clear
that the Windows/Macintosh model of the application with local display
capability only is the long-term winner.  Xt may not be the answer (I
personally find Xt a peculiarly unattractive way of expressing
programs), but APIs that require a kernel-based, local-display
implementation aren't, either.

scott preece
acting chair, IEEE P1201.1 work group
--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
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