
Why Apple didn't use X for the window system  - chaostheory
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75257&cid=6734612
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orib
_1) Extend font server and services to vend outlines and antialiased masks,
support more font types, handle font subsetting._

It does that. See Cairo/XRender. or XFT. or any of the other client-side font
stuff (available since 2000)

 _2) Extend drawing primitives to include PS-like path operations._

It does that. See Cairo/XRender. Cairo was explicitly designed around a
postscript-style drawing model.

 _3) Add dithering and phase controls._

It does that. See Cairo/XRender.

 _4) Add ColorSync support for drawing and imaging operations, display
calibration_

Yeah, color management sucks. On all systems. There's work to make it better
on X, with XRandR 1.2 CRTC properties, but the linear lookup tables that
hardware exposes can only do a rough approximation. The "right" way of doing
it that would provide good results is slow, complicated, and difficult to get
right.

 _5) Add broad alpha channel support and Porter-Duff compositing, both for
drawing in a window and for interactions between windows._

It does that. See composite/cairo/XRender.

 _6) Add support for general affine transforms of windows_

It does better than that - this is under application control, and can do weird
and wonderful stuff like cutting holes in windows, rendering them in 3d,
recoloring them, etc

 _7) Add support for mesh-warps of windows_

See above -- arbitrary manipulation to window images is possible because it's
under application control.

 _8) Make sure that OpenGL and special video playback hardware support is
integrated, and behaves well with all above changes._

Yeah. drivers suck under X. the situation is rapidly improving though,
especially under Intel and ATI.

 _9) We find that we typically stream 200 Mb/sec of commands and textures for
interactive OpenGL use, so transport efficiency could be an issue._

No, it really isn't. Unix domain sockets are fast. really fast. as in, beating
shared memory sometimes fast. And if you really need shared memory (this can
be a win in large, one-time blits, although usually you're better off not
using it), it's also there through the XSHM extension which is about 15 years
old.

So why did they do their own window system from scratch? Well, because they
didn't. They merely extended NeXT's disply postscript, which they already
owned and had code for.

~~~
anewaccountname
Is this a gimmick post to prove that block quotes lower the quality of
discussion?

~~~
mechanical_fish
I cannot possibly upmod this enough.

I just don't read posts like the one above. My brain literally refuses to
bother anymore -- it scans the first couple of lines, sees the stuff it's
already read, sees the _repeated lines_ , and then starts looking around for
something else to do.

The author's actual intelligence couldn't be better disguised if it came in
the shape of a banner ad.

~~~
orib
To be quite honest, I find that format easier to read (well, why else would I
have posted it that way?)

A short snippet that is being responded to puts the text in context, allowing
the reader to see exactly what I'm going on about, without reading the article
over and over, matching up what part, exactly, I'm responding to.

Sure, massive copy-and-paste is a waste of time, and obscures the post.
However a lack of context, in my opinion, will make things even more confusing
to the reader, especially in the case of the text that's being responded to
being on a different page.

Ah well, each to their own.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Your repeated lines... aren't repeating anymore, presumably thanks to the
magic of editing. That is a remarkable improvement. The sight of the same
sentence being echoed over and over, a sight which practically screams
"enraged fanboy", is now absent.

My other problem with the point-by-point rebuttal is that all the chaff (in
the form of those detailed but disconnected footnotes) threatens to obscure
the bottom line, which in this case is "it isn't 2003 anymore and X has
actually made a lot of progress since then". Basically, what I wanted to read
was your _second_ post. Which is much better than the first because it's
written in prose -- connected sentences that speak in your voice and tell a
story -- and not in chopped-up bullet points.

Now, if this were a detailed design review of a windowing-system project,
things would be different, and I'd agree with you that your format is just
fine.

Perhaps the issue here is that you obviously know and care a great deal about
the design details of windowing systems, whereas I would rather read a short,
colloquial summary of the state of play and then go to bed. ;)

