From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 7754 invoked from network); 24 Jan 2021 23:34:17 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 24 Jan 2021 23:34:17 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 3AF329C7C6; Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:34:15 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A3749C641; Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:33:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 29D2D9C641; Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:33:48 +1000 (AEST) Received: from fourwinds.com (fourwinds.com [63.64.179.162]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2AC459C5FD for ; Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:33:46 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 10ONXj43974042 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT) for ; Sun, 24 Jan 2021 15:33:45 -0800 Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (jon@localhost) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id 10ONXjcI974038 for ; Sun, 24 Jan 2021 15:33:45 -0800 Message-Id: <202101242333.10ONXjcI974038@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Jon Steinhart To: TUHS main list In-reply-to: References: <20210124183653.GD21030@mcvoy.com> <202101242045.10OKjDvA964774@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <20210124211100.GI21030@mcvoy.com> <202101242114.10OLEYGk966708@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <20210124212525.GJ21030@mcvoy.com> Comments: In-reply-to Dan Cross message dated "Sun, 24 Jan 2021 17:53:16 -0500." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <974035.1611531224.1@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 15:33:44 -0800 X-JON-SPAM: local delivery Subject: Re: [TUHS] tangential unix question: whatever happened to NeWS? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Dan Cross writes: > > The interesting thing about all of this graphics stuff (and to tie it back > to TUHS) is that none of these things ever struck me as particularly Unix-y > in nature. X in particular doesn't seem like it composes nicely with > anything else, and in many ways, Unix from the perspective of a user is all > about composition from smaller parts. But X is this big, monolithic thing > that you kind of bolted on the side. For example, it certainly doesn't > integrate with, say, the permissions model. > > I wonder if these seeming impedance mismatches are because pretty much > being all of this stuff invented as folks went along. > > - Dan C. This wasn't UNIX-y at all, it didn't come from UNIX despite having its origin in the original Stanford University Network machine. The problem isn't unique and is one of those things that I'm trying to help with via mentoring and such. The big question that few seem to consider is "Am I adding value with what I'm doing?" Even if people think about it, few are learning much about history despite our attempts here. I try to point out that learning the history is important so that instead of repeating mistakes that others have made one can come up with new and interesting mistakes. I remember trying to talk to Bob Scheifler about this and was stunned to hear him say "I don't believe in models because they predispose your implementation." As near as I could tell, he didn't look at anything anyone else had done (with the exception of the W code from Stanford) which is why he made all sorts of beginner mistakes. For example, had he been looking at other projects in the window space he would have seen how Gosling and Rosenthal designed the Andrew protocol to minimize network round trips. But it never seemed to cross his mind until others pushed for it in response to NeWS. These mismatches are everywhere today. Programming is more about learning secret incantations to make poorly designed stuff sort of work than it is about actual good design. At least in my opinion. BTW, one of my part time projects here which is currently low on the priority list is to fix this. I've done some prototyping of a "real UNIX philosophy" window system which looks a lot like some of the Plan 9 stuff. I map my desktop into a filesystem and use inotify to monitor changes. My goal, which so far seems achievable is to make a system that requires no new commands and works with all of the existing ones. Create a directory and fill it with some stuff to make a window. Delete it to get rid of it. Write the size and position into files in the directory to move and resize. And so on. Doing this, the window manager was only a couple of hundred lines of bash script. Going back to X versus NeWS in a way, one of the stumbling blocks is how things have gone back to device-dependent graphics. As near as I can tell (haven't done too much work here), it takes about a thousand lines of code using Vulcan to draw a simple straight line these days. Jon