On: Why Apple didn't use X for the window system

[ajross]

Cairo can, and does work that way. There are current cairo backends for X11, Postscript, PDF, flat image buffers, OpenGL, SVG, win32, quartz, and no doubt a bunch of others I'm forgetting. The whole point of the thing was to have a robust, path-based imaging model that works everywhere.

This is now 4 year old technology. Please flame with more current criticism. :)

[gaius → ajross]

You could always take an X screenshot and dump it to the printer :-P Cairo is more analogous to say Qt or wx than it is DPS/DPDF.

[ajross → gaius]

Your implication seems to be that Cairo doesn't work on an accelerated backend? That's not correct. It is correct that the primitive assembly happens client side in Cairo, which I'm not sure is a misfeature. The IPC overhead of DPS was always one of its biggest problems.