Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!ulysses!cjc
From: cjc@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Chris Calabrese[rs])
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: Traffic on the X list
Summary: color on the printer too
Message-ID: <10444@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 13 Jul 88 16:56:19 GMT
References: <8807090612.AA05871@dmssyd.dms.oz>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 56

In article <8807090612.AA05871@dmssyd.dms.oz>, ronb@natmlab.dms.OZ.AU.UUCP writes:
> 
> In article <23581@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
> >
> >And it's not like there are applications out there crying for NeWS
> >(eg. things like Frame), there's no noise I've heard from our users
> >(as a matter of fact I have no idea off-hand what is available with
> >NeWS other than the environment and a terminal emulator, am I missing
> >something? How would I know? I haven't seen any literature really and
> 
> 	Well that really is an invitation to mention that we have a
> 	version of the AT&T S Data Analysis System running under
> 	NeWS.  It has the name of Ace and the first version is out
> 	there but, of course, we are working on the second which will
> 	be a whole lot better.
> 
> 	So what, you could say, since S is readily available under
> 	SunView -- S-Plus comes to mind.  Well, since NeWS is built on
> 	PostScript it has been quite easy to make Ace generate
> 	very impressive color graphics on the screen, and equally
> 	impressive grey-scale graphics on the LaserWriter -- instead
> 	of the simple Tek-like line drawings that most S users get.
> 
> 	So you are right, maybe it will need a bit more time before
> 	the number of applications will become noticeable, but I
> 	expect these applications will have excellent graphics
> 	capabilities because PostScript makes it possible.

What, you don't have a color PostScript printer yet???  O.K. the one
we have here is about $20,000, so you're off the hook.

Anyway, I whole heartedly agree.  The project I'm working on now
is using NeWS for just these types of reasons.
	Quick development time.
	Can print anything that can be displayed on the screen.
	Low network bandwidth (for those who say that such things
		as menu synchronization eat this up, I say
		hog wash!  Just write the _whole_ application
		in PostScript, and you won't have to worry about
		communication costs.  Actually, our software is
		about 90% in PostScript, so it is possible, without
		losing performance (speed of drawing and doing
		large datbase searches are much bigger problems
		on our project than speed of interpreting the
		PostScript code.
	Don't have to take a course in computer graphics to understand
	 it.
		PostScript looks messy, but it's really _clean_ and easy
		to understand.  Plus, the imaging model is more intuitive
		for those of us who have studdied art, and not fundamentals
		of math oriented bit blitting 403 in graduate school.

-- 
	Christopher J. Calabrese
	AT&T Bell Laboratories
	ulysses!cjc