Mail Archives: opendos/1997/05/15/15:20:14
On Thu, 15 May 1997, Roberto Alsina wrote:
> > To all those thinking about X on OpenDOS, *PLEASE* go to
> > http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/unix/uh/x-windows.html and read it ALL. If at
> > the end of this you're still in the mood to have X in OpenDOS, take 2
> > aspirins and go to bed. You can call in sick for work.
>
> Have you ever *used* X?
> That URL is just a chapter of the infamous "Unix Hater Handbook".
Yes, I use X on a daily basis. I actually *love* Unix, but it is because
we can improve on it, so I often read stuff like that to remind me it
isn't perfect and give me ideas how we should improve it. The rest of that
site isn't very good (except maybe the SGI memo), but this one is rather
on the point (though quite acid in the process)...
> Quote: "The vanilla X11R4 xclock utility consumed 656K to run. And X's
> memory usage is increasing".
>
> Now some facts:
> X11R4 is *ancient*. It's X11R6.3 now, so xclock should use more than 656K.
> The memory usage of running xclock on my system:
Agreed. It is quite ancient.
> Total memory used: 1028Kb
> It's a lot, but....
> Of those 1028Kb, 780Kb are shared with other apps (it's basically all of
> the athena widgets, plus libX11 and libXt, it's like counting GDI.EXE and
> USER.EXE as part of a windows program). So, xclock's memory usage is....
> 248Kb, not 656Kb.
Yes, but what do you think? That all the programs use the Athena widgets?
Heck, either they use Motif (which I don't have, so all applications have
libXm *static* linked), or they each use whatever widget kit they fancy
(which amount to about the same as if they were static linked).
> xdaliclock (a very cute clock, that does digit-morphing) uses
> 1144, of which 888 are shared, giving a usage of 256Kb.
>
> Other (leaner) clocks, take the memory usage under 64 Kb.
Which seems more reasonable for a *clock*. ;-)
> And X *is* useful. And X has a free implementation that could be ported
> to DOS.
Oh, yes, it *is* useful, I wouldn't use it if it wasn't! But it
could/should be way better.
No real cut and paste. My "Configure AfterStep" button starts up an editor
(my favorite one, from the EDITOR environment variable, thank God it's not
VI by default!) on my .steprc file. And it is just *so* ugly. I can do
whatever pleases me to make my X environment look good: I run AfterStep
with a heavily tweaked configuration, 3D buttons, color pixmaps and all.
But the very second I start an application, I look at the menubar and
think about buying a plane ticket to see the developer of the application
and strangle him.
> > "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
> > regarded as a criminal offense." - Edsger W. Dijkstra.
>
> I thought Dijkstra said that about BASIC, not COBOL?
It's in "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective"... I do
remember he made a similar comment about BASIC.
Pierre Phaneuf
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offense." - Edsger W. Dijkstra.
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