Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!confusion.Princeton.EDU!eho
From: eho@confusion.Princeton.EDU (Eric Ho)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.xerox
Subject: not quite the last word
Message-ID: <8805111831.AA01925@confusion.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 11 May 88 18:31:41 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 26

++> I have worked on Exploerers, Symbolics, Suns and MicroVaxs but have found
++> no machine that comes close to the Xerox.

Well, superior programming environment is one of the hallmarks of all LISP
machines anyway - nothing new.  Basically, you've 2 environments to compare
with (until other vendors invent better environments or simply incorporate the
environments into their products) - the East and West coasts.  They all have
their various virtues and weaknesses but I wouldn't say that the Xerox's
environment is superior to that found in the Symbolics Genera environment -
the Xerox is definitely more intuitive I must agree but then there are other
things in the Genera environment that one couldn't find in the Xerox
environment (or at least not yet).  Then of course there are many other things
both environments share - afterall the inventors of both environments came
from the same grad schools (well, more or less) or at least associated with
the same schools.  It is interesting to note that many of the user interface
stuff (overlapping recursive windows and pop-up menus) first came up in the
60's in MIT's Machine Architecture Lab (now called Media Lab), then of course
some of their grad students went to work for PARC afterwards.

It'll be interesting to see if the lisp machines vendors come up with better
and newer environments though as other manufacturers are starting to
incorporate similiar environments (almost identical in most cases) into their
products.

regards.

-eric-