[155] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: X/Windows and the Libraries
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stu Weibel)
Mon May 4 14:39:03 1992
Date: Mon, 4 May 1992 13:33:30 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Stu Weibel <stu%rsch.oclc.org@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Stephen Davis Writes:
A campus-wide networking task force here is considering proposing
X/X-Windows as a presentation standard for networked applications.
I'd be interested in hearing about this question from the perspective
of networked library applications generally...
The time has arrived when X-Windows technology is up to meeting the
demands of networked applications. It is the basis for the windowing
applications for several major workstation vendors and has outgrown
much of the clunkiness that plagued earlier versions.
X-Windows is the native windowing environment for the CORE project, an
electronic full-text library experiment hosted by Cornell University's
Mann Library and involving the efforts of Bellcore, American Chemical
Society, Chemical Abstracts, and OCLC. Our experience with X-Windows
has been very promising; hardware platforms as diverse as Sun
SparcStations, Apple Macintoshes, and NeXT machines will run our
interface software. This is an important victory in user interface
delivery.
What is less clear is whether users will readily accept this
homogenization of look and feel... Will Macintosh users accept an X
application? Will Microsoft Windows users run X also? Will NeXT
users? Time will tell.
My guess is that the advantage and economy of supporting a single
interface will be very strong, stronger than the initial resistence to
variations in look and feel. This is especially true when there are
limited budgets available to support software delivery, and many
important projects to compete for those funds. Lotus has the revenue
stream to support such efforts - most academic environments do not.
The additional payoff of the flexibility of a client-server,
distributed application is an important additional advantage.
If you build them [and there is high value there!], users will come.
Bring on X-Windows.
Stuart Weibel
OCLC Office of Research
