Re: [linas linas org: Re: Linux Terminal Server Project need for thinXwindows]

["Liam R. E. Quin" <liam holoweb net>]

For what it's worth, Sun's ancient NeWS system worked this way -- the
server knew about widgets.  I did some measurements comparing it to the
then current X11R3, and yes, it used a lot less bandwidth.

There are some hard design issues.  NeWS gave a way to construct new
widgets, by sending down scripts to the server, which could create and
manipulate garbage-collected objects.

Berlin has many of the same design goals as NeWS did, although not all.

Resolution independence - and being able to drag a window from a colour
screen to a black & white 1bit one, and see it dithered, then drag it
back to the colour screen and see the colours again, all with no work
by the application developer, was a technically impressive demo, but
NeWS tended to be less robust than X, and more resource-hungry on the
server.  Probably that wouldn't matter today.

Anyway, I have to mention NeWS once every few months, ignore me ;)
Liam