| Title: | DECWINDOWS 26-JAN-89 to 29-NOV-90 |
| Notice: | See 1639.0 for VMS V5.3 kit; 2043.0 for 5.4 IFT kit |
| Moderator: | STAR::VATNE |
| Created: | Mon Oct 30 1989 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Dec 31 1990 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 3726 |
| Total number of notes: | 19516 |
I'm working on an opportunity for a large amount of workstations
(1500 over 3 years). The end-user customer has a contract with
a Big Eight firm to develop an all-encompassing, 9-part application.
These questions are from the consultant, posed from an application
development standpoint:
1. What type of portability does UIL offer? i.e. What would it
take to have an application developed in UIL run on a Sun with Sun/OS;
an IBM RT with AIX, or PC with either Presentation Manager or a
version of Unix?
My initial answer has been: "If you restrict your widget use to
those accepted by OSF and, if the plaftorm you're heading for is
compliant, you're fine." Yes, I'm in sales. He needs more.
2. How are multiple instances of a window handled? Can the DRM
data be shared or is another copy of the instance loaded?
He's asking about the "efficiency" of DECwindows. My research suggests
that each window - no matter if it is the 5th "instance" of the
exact same thing - is loaded as a complete and separate module.
3. What would the typical development environment look like - work
flow from the design, to the compiling, testing, and packaging?
A local group working on a large DECwindows development project
is using our CASE tools throughout this process. The consultant
comes from a SmallTalk '80, object-oriented software development
background. I'm sure that most of his questions/concerns are based
on differences between developing in that environment vs. DW.
4. How are DRM files managed? and What are the sizes of the DRM
files and the resulting object application code?
I appreciate any help/insight/suggestions - besides avoiding
consultants- that any of you may have.
Thank you.
Chris
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 188.1 | Answers | CALL::SWEENEY | Roads? Where we're going we don't need..roads | Mon Feb 13 1989 23:48 | 45 |
Hey, Chris, don't they have any workstation specialists in New Jersey?
(1) Portability has and is committed by Digital for XUI, or more
precisely, enabling third parties to develop ports of XUI. Digital
intends to license XUI in source form. Some of the XUI/OSF/Motif
issues are yet to be resolved. UIL itself has been ported to UNIX.
Microsoft Presentation Manager is, in theory, possible but as we
scientists say, not probable in the near term.
UIL works with any X Toolkit Intrinsics conforming widgets, not just
the XUI ones. What UIL has special for XUI widgets is some syntax that
makes XUI widgets easier to reference and some compile-time checking
for them.
(2) I'm not sure what you mean by "be shared". The most efficient
usage is to do one DwtFetchInterfaceModule and instantiate all of the
widgets in a module in one fell swoop. DwtFetchWidget always has the
effect of creating a widget (or widgets).
If the customer is interested in limiting widget creation there are many
techniques for widget recycling. In my experience an application that
is constantly creating and destroying widgets is almost certainly
inefficiently designed...whether the widgets are created from DRM or
from XtCreateWidget.
(3) The typical development environment now for VMS, at least, is
use of VAXset tools, UIL, and hope that things will get better.
Did you just read the note I wrote in DWICS_USER regarding
SmallTalk-brained consultants? XUI is the "right" set of pragmatic
tradeoffs for real applications for computers Digital makes in the 1989
timeframe.
For the future, our heart is in the right place in providing
ever-higher-level tools. As to whether engineering budgets reflect the
position of our heart, you'd need to talk to other people about that.
(4) DRM is not a file but data structures in memory. UIL creates UID
files. My largest UIL text file is 350 blocks and it creates a UID
file of 208 blocks.
Patrick Sweeney
just another workstation person in New York
| |||||
| 188.2 | 1001st Point of Light | HOCUS::WEBBER | Let's DoWiT | Tue Feb 14 1989 09:18 | 4 |
Hey, Patrick, thanks!
Chris in New York
| |||||