Xref: utzoo comp.lang.forth:575 comp.lang.postscript:980 comp.windows.news:795 comp.windows.misc:706
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!rminnich
From: rminnich@super.ORG (Ronald G Minnich)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth,comp.lang.postscript,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Why you should use NeWS as a tool to learn PostScript
Keywords: Forth, Lisp, Interactive PostScript, NeWS
Message-ID: <777@super.ORG>
Date: 22 Sep 88 12:12:52 GMT
References: <13613@mimsy.UUCP> <3492@phri.UUCP> <23378@wlbr.EATON.COM> <3496@phri.UUCP> <13655@mimsy.UUCP>
Sender: uucp@super.ORG
Reply-To: rminnich@metropolis.UUCP (Ronald G Minnich)
Organization: Supercomputing Research Center, Lanham, MD
Lines: 40

In article <13655@mimsy.UUCP> don@brillig.umd.edu.UUCP (Don Hopkins) writes:
>The fact that the PostScript interpreter in NeWS is different than the
>PostScript interpreter (whatever brand it is) that runs in your laser
>printer doesn't mean that it's harder to learn PostScript in NeWS. Of

   Actually, there is one problem with playing with NeWS  that i have found.
You screw up, and you blow your window manager out of the water. 
Then it is almost impossible to determine the state of the world, given
that you have canvasses floating around that have no (seeming) process
attached to them, and you can't change your focus, and ...
   I would much prefer having an X window with a PS interpreter
in it for learning. Then i only have to worry about blowing up that
window, not my whole server. 
   I liked NeWS a lot, but it is too fragile. Sure, it has lightweight
tasks and all that other nice event handling built in. When i started
learning it it really looked like the 'right way to go'; in fact, 
it still does. Sometimes there is a difference between the right 
way to go and the thing that works. I think X11 works. For example, NeWS has
no protection. You can just go trash the interpreter's universe and
then find yourself in a very unhappy state without a paddle. No fun.
I have yet to trash the X server in the ways i trashed the NeWS server.
   It could be that NeWS is just running under the wrong OS. 
A good impedance match of NeWs to OS would be a NeWS on the amiga, 
as much of what NeWS does (event queues, lightweight tasks, etc.)
has an almost eery resemblance to what the amiga Rom Kernel and Intuition
support. And the same problems exist, too, the biggest being no 
protection. Maybe NeWs would be better under Mach ... ?
   I notice that there have been comparisons of NeWS to Unix, in the
sense that NeWS represents a technically superior system much as 
Unix one time represented a technically superior system that might not
have caught on. There is one key difference. By the time Unix really
started to catch on, it was no longer technically superior. In fact
nowadays we are more bound by its limitations than overawed by 
its abilities. If i had to compare NeWS to an OS, i would compare
it to the Apollo Domain system or Multics, which are technically superior but
have also remained vendor-specific and hence something of a niche system.
   I think the analogy that really holds is Unix --> X11, Multics --> NeWS.
And we all know which OS 'won' in the sense of being 'universal'.
We also have a pretty good idea which is better, i think ...
ron