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From: rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Re^2: Gadgets in Motif
Message-ID: <8908181200.AA07368@expire.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 89 12:00:56 GMT
References: <122257@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30


    It has always been very difficult for me to understand the reasons
    behind making each interactive element of the interface a server level
    resource, when it should simply be regions of the screen defining
    interactive elements.

The argument is hardly as trivial as you make it sound.  There are lots of
potential reasons on both sides of this issue.  I'm sure the Amiga is a nice
system, but it isn't X, and the same arguments don't necessarily apply.  In
the X world, there are issues like having elements with different Visuals,
different depths, different colormaps.  There are issues like establishing
non-conflicing passive grabs.  There are issues like avoiding duplicating
lots of complicated server machinery on the client side.

    The drain of the performance of the Server has been clearly shown with
    early widget programs.

Yes, although it's mostly been shown on early server implementations.  The
performance drain has been demonstrated most clearly, I think, with menus
that have each item as a separate window.  I'm happy to agree that's a bad
design, but I wouldn't want to blindly extrapolate from that to the conclusion
that no windows is good windows.  I'm not saying gadgets are a bad idea, but
they bring on their own set of problems.

    How has it happened that so many intelligent
    people have assumed that windows are a cheap resource that can be used
    freely?

How has it happened that so many intelligent people have assumed that windows
can't be made a whole lot cheaper?  R4, here we come ...