| Quickie. a) OSF Motif is designed to look very much like PM to
the user.
b) The programming interfaces are different. Hard to say which is
easier to use. Both are very new. Personally I find the PM interfaces
yukky (but I've only read about them, never used them).
c) PM is much more memory-efficient.
d) PM only runs on PCs which means you are limited in speed to Intel
80386s. OSF Motif runs on RISC machines which are twice as fast as the
fastest 80386s. There may be issues around PM availability on clones.
Also, the typical Motif engines support the attachment of much more
physical memory than PCs will.
[Neither PM not Motif will run on PCs with MS-DOS, of course. PM
requires OS/2 and Motif some sort of PC Unix, if indeed it even runs on
PCs yet. An OS/2-PM engine is probably a good deal easier to system
manage than your typical Unix-based Motif engine, but neither is
anywhere near as easy to deal with as an MS-DOS PC.]
e) PM has threads. Most if not all OSF Motif implementations are
on OS's which lack threads. Threads are said to make programming
interactive apps a lot easier.
f) Display PostScript is available with X based systems such as
Motif, but not (as far as I am aware) with PM.
g) Over the long run DECwindows is expected to become much like
OSF Motif. The current DECwindows was the basis for OSF Motif
but differs in detail and especially in user interface.
h) PM lacks the infamous network transparency of X.
i) Motif engines, which run Unix or VMS, have nice mature debug
environments. I'm not sure how the debug environment for PM
applications compares.
j) You should also ask in the MOSAIC::OS2 notesfile where all the PM
experts hang out.
|
| <<< WSEADM::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DWT.NOTE;1 >>>
-< Digital Worksystems Teams >-
================================================================================
Note 211.0 DECwindows vs. Presentation Manager No replies
CSOA1::HUNT 118 lines 22-MAR-1989 18:29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is some good information on the differences between DECwindows
and Presentation Manager. We have a situation where an ISV is claiming
that DECwindows and Presentation were the same.
These are responses to memos that we sent out.
Thanks for your help Jim.
I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 20-Mar-1989 08:25pm EST
From:
BROTHER@RANCHO@MRGATE@CSOA1@CSO
Dept:
Tel No:
TO: HUNT.DAVID@A1
Subject: DECWindows vs PM (they are different)
Presentation Manager and DECwindows are in fact very different. They will look
and behave differently. The DECwindows toolkit, known as XUI, has been
accepted by OSF as the foundation for the OSF/Motif User Interface. PM will
run only on OS/2 based PC's. OSF/Motif will run on almost any workstation or
PC (with enough memory). OSF/Motif is based on the X Window System from MIT.
This has been endorsed by all the major and most minor workstation vendors
as "the" window system of choice for workstations. PM is very dependent on
OS/2. OSF/Motif will run on any operating system (i.e. Unix, VMS). If your
customer cares about portability he should chose DECwindows and OSF/Motif.
The final point about DECwindows and OSF/Motif is that being based on the
X Window System t use a client/server architecture. This means that an
application could be run on a large machine and the graphics results placed
on the workstation. With PM, the appllication must run on the local workstations.
George Brother
US Worksystems
I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 20-Mar-1989 08:38pm EST
From: VMS MAIL user rwood
rwood@VAJRA@MRGATE
Dept:
Tel No:
TO: jc
TO: csoa1::hunt
Subject: Re: Help! Presentation Manager Differences
Jim forwarded your request to me, David.
Regarding the differences between PM and DW: until DW evolves into
OSF/Motif, there are essentially no similarities - at least, no more
than between any two window systems. The "look and feel" is different,
as is the applications interface.
However, HP's contribution to OSF/Motif provides a moderate amount of
commonality with the PM style, primarily in terms of the window
manager. (BTW, if you'd like to demo that window manager, there are
instructions for it in the Ultrix notesfile). HP worked with MS to
design it, although MS themselves didn't make the submission to OSF, it
was embodied in HP's CXI (Common X Interface).
There are a few things that the Motif appearance and behavior will
share with PM, such as the way windows are resized, moved, etc. The
"buttons" on the border of each window are similarly placed, and
perform the same function, although they look a bit different, since
the higher resolution of workstations allowed a more sophisicated appearance.
BUT: as far as the application interface goes, the two are radically
differenct. DECwindows and OSF/Motif are both based on the industry
standard, X11. Since the X Window System is the foundation of both,
they have that much-touted network transparency. Motif, in addition,
should be destined to become the defacto standard for all workstations.
So an application designed for PM would be quite difficult to port to
DECwindows or Motif; the libraries are wholly different. (At least as
difficult as porting from UIS or SunView to DECwindows, possibly a bit
easier than porting from MS/Windows or MacIntosh's window system).
In addition, PM will never run on anything but OS/2, or possibly DOS.
Very, very unlikely on Unix systems. It stands almost no chance at
becoming THE standard, although with IBM's and MS's market pressure, it
will be a large market regardless.
Of course, Motif-compliant applications will port very readily to a
much wider range of platforms, including (eventually) every workstation
(both VMS and Unix based), as well as PCs. Santa Cruz Operations (SCO)
has already announced a product that will provide Unix (Xenix) and DOS
on one machine, using the DECwindows (evolving to Motif) interface.
The confusion stems from that small but significant amount of "look and
feel" that the two will share. This will benefit *only* the user, not
the programmer. Training costs, as well as user confusion, will be
kept slightly lower since the two platforms will share some basic
windowing functions.
The underlying platform, both for the window system and for the
operating system, remain tremendously different.
Does this answer the question?
If you need more info on technical differences between the DECwindows
or Motif interfaces and PM, try the DECwindows notesfile.
BTW - feel free to post both your question and my answer in the DWT
notesfile (or any other).
|