Re: [9fans] X Window System

[tlaronde@polynum.com]

On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 09:14:14AM +0000, pavlovetsky@gmail.com wrote:
> What would be the difficulties if someone wishes to port X to Plan 9
> and wants to see it running independently of rio? Any ideas, from
> technical point of view?

This is not a technical advice but more a theoretical one. I'm actually
rewriting the 2D interface for KerGIS programs with an eye on want I
want/need: a distributed system with computing (may be heavy in the
KerGIS case) on CPU nodes, and interface handling (exclusively
arithmetic i.e. only ALU intrusctions) on terminals (the connection
between the terminal and the CPU being exclusively 1D commands, i.e. the
graphical interface is only a graphical mean to select commands and
data, there is only one version of the computing programs with a
text/line oriented language [batch]).

With this is mind, one sees that X is the wrong answer since the
interface handling (the menu abstraction, the heavy stuff done by the
toolkits) is not on the terminal but on the CPU (if one uses the
"distributed" nature of X). This is not its place, and its really "old"
conception: a mainframe with dumb terminals.

I hope the main idea is clear enough, I mean IMHO providing a "toolkit"
plan 9 based would be far better and probably in terms of work
far easier than porting the whole X world to Plan 9.

In my case, with a huge beast---but that is becoming lean since with the
principles above I suppress tons of redundant spaghetti code---,
rewriting the graphical interface is a benefit on Unix/X11 and will
allow porting to pure plan 9 absolutely easily (with there the full
benefit of "distributed"; it will be the same on Unix, but not
delegating "distribution" to X, but taking care at it by the
architecture of the code).

On another side, the X11 people want now to include the graphical server
in the OS and wonder about the X protocol (but AFAIK haven't identified
that the "distribution"/connexion is not done in the right place). That
is, the future of X11 is more towards plan 9 concepts so "following" X11
is a bit weird ;)

I hope these thoughts have some interest for what you have in mind.

Cheers,
--
Thierry Laronde (Alceste) <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                 http://www.kergis.com/
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