Hi, On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 12:09:40PM -0800, Matthew Tedder wrote: > Yes--X is largely a protocol. It's mostly very low-level, except for key > things. Font rendering, for example, normally takes up a large part of GUI > building CPU cycles. The X server, sitting on the client machine, thus > greatly reduces CPU load on the server. Yes, but sending rendered bitmaps over the X channel take hogs of bandwidth. It wasn't even designed to work that way; X has string drawing primitives. > The synergistic effects of running applications on the server also includes > sharing program code, and only requiring separate data instances for each > user using that same application. This sharing is at the kernel level. > Desktop componant architectures such as those in KDE (in particular) are > greatly amplified in terms of sharing and performance. Of course, that's a good thing. But I'm still maintaining that sending a fully rendered desktop over the wire and every mouse event puts high demands on latency. > > <pipe dream> > > > > Looking back, it would have been great if X would have allowed a > > separate (widget) rendering server, just like it allows a separate font > > server and a separate window manager, making the X protocol more > > widget-oriented instead of pixel-oriented. > > Since X doesn't render widgets at all, and it does support extension modules, > why not just make a widget server for it? Actually, LTSP makes that even > unnecessary. I'll have to look at LTSP; I've heard the name but know nothing else about it, other than that I guess the acronym stands for linux terminal server project. > Errr... that would disallow a lot of the flexibility that differentiates the > two......such as signals and slots verses strictly event driven widgets. No, that's nothing to do with the protocol. The 'widget protocol client' could offer both C and C++ language bindings with different programming models. The X protocol itself doesn't mandate a particular programming model either. > However, a widget server using XMLGUI over Jabber-based webservices would > revolutionize and render the web obsolete, in my opinion (So long as XML > document formats are allowed within--which is a natural). Well, that's largely what I had in mind. Closing the gap between the X protocol and http+html. Distributed computing, internet style. Cheers, Emile. -- E-Advies / Emile van Bergen | emile@e-advies.info tel. +31 (0)70 3906153 | http://www.e-advies.info
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