Siggraph & Window Systems
I'm spending the week at
Siggraph, which is always fun. This is the one
conference a year that I can attend and just sit in paper sessions
and listen and learn. I've been going to Siggraph for an
embarrassing number of years. In the distant past, I used to do a
lot of graphics work and my first project at Sun was to build a
PostScript-based window system called "NeWS" (the Networked,
extensible, Window System). It died years ago for a variety of
reasons, but lots of folks loved it. I keep getting questions about
it, particularly since Apple's window system bears some resemblance
to it. Just a few minutes ago I ran into an old friend who asked
the inevitable "
Whatever happened to... Could you get Sun to
release the source so we could resurrect it?". I probably could
get the source released, but it would be a bad idea. A couple of
years ago I wrote a paper about what I'd do if I were asked to
design a window system today. I never published it other than to
hand it around to a few friends. So now, it's
here.
