Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!decwrl!pyramid!prls!philabs!bebop!sxm
From: sxm@philabs.Philips.Com (Sandeep Mehta)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Mixing window system and graphics operations
Message-ID: <3656@briar.Philips.Com>
Date: 20 Jun 88 13:14:40 GMT
References: <3648@briar.Philips.Com> <6300@well.UUCP>
Sender: news@philabs.Philips.Com
Reply-To: sxm@bebop.UUCP (Sandeep Mehta)
Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 27

In article <6300@well.UUCP> sierch@well.UUCP (Michael Sierchio) writes:
>
>It seems to me, and has for some time, that one of the major defects of
>PHIGS and GKS, etc. is that they provide the user interface support that
>they do -- they simply aren't designed for multi-taking workstations in
>which the input and output focus are the responsibility of a special
>process (the Notifier, etc).  They were designed for plotters, dumb
>serial graphics terminals, and film-recorders.
>

I think the reason most graphics packages seem unsuitable for graphics
workstations is because the standards definition makes them so. I keep
asking my PHIGS package vendor why they insist on using FORTRAN to
implement their software, and they best answer I got was "historical
reasons", "the standard probably specifies FORTRAN langauge bindings",
and of course "majority of our customers still use FORTRAN". Funnily
enough the F77 compiler on the Suns is written in C (as far as I know)
which allows to me carry on in C and work around the mixed language
binding problems.

I think the standards committees should acknowledge the advent of the era
of high-end graphics multi-tasking workstations.

sandeep
--
Sandeep Mehta                                         uunet!philabs!bebop!sxm
Philips Laboratories                                  sxm@philabs.philips.com