Re: [TCLUG:12935] Remote X (client/server rant)

["Eric M. Hopper" <hopper@omnifarious.mn.org>]

On Thu, Jan 27, 2000 at 09:44:53AM -0600, Dave Sherohman wrote:
> 
> X server or X application?  In X terminology, the server is the part
> that generates the display and the client does oall the processing.
> (Yes, it's the exact opposite of the words' normal meanings.  Yes,
> it's confusing.  No, I haven't ever gotten a coherent explanation
> beyond 'the client makes requests for the server to do interface
> things'.)

	Servers are things that wait for clients to connect and request
services.  X clients are programs that connect to X servers and ask them
to display stuff for them.

	The whole "Me Server!  Me big box in back room with good IO
bandwidth!" and "Me Client!  Me tiny box on person's desk." view of
client/server is what happened when mainframe people descended on the
UNIX and PC world and tried to make sense of the technology from within
their worldview.  IMHO, this mindset leads to a lot of innefficiency and
muddled thinking.  TCP/IP is inherently a peer-to-peer network, and the
client/server distinction refers only to who does the connecting and who
does the waiting for a connection.

	Anyway, there's my rant on the topic.  :-)

Have fun (if at all possible),
-- 
Its name is Public Opinion.  It is held in reverence. It settles everything.
Some think it is the voice of God.  Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet
broke a chain or freed a human soul.     ---Mark Twain
-- Eric Hopper (hopper@omnifarious.mn.org  http://omnifarious.mn.org/~hopper) --

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