Re: WHAT MOVES ON SCREEN?

[Matt Hicks <matt -at- UNIDATA -dot- UCAR -dot- EDU>]

On Wed, 6 Jul 1994, Rod Hester wrote:

> Intuition (and working with hypertext) leads me to believe the data
> moves, not the window.  However, it probably depends on the program and
> the programmer's mental state at the time ;-).

I have a hard time seeing how the data could be fixed and the window
moving over it. To me, this implies that all the data is constantly
displayed under an opaque desktop and thus "window" is a more literal
term than I realized. Is this truly the conceptual model used by the
people who first developed windowing systems?

My take on this is that neither the data nor the window "moves". A
graphical representation of the data is redisplayed at a number of
positions within a window, but the data itself remains in a fixed
location in memory. If you think that either the data or the window
moves, then what is happening when you relocate a window on your desktop?
Both the "data" and the window move. If either of the proposed models
were accurate portrayals of reality, I would expect to see different
"data" in the window when it arrived at its new location.

I think this topic is amusing and interesting as a kind of mind expansion
exercise, but ultimately it's just mental masturbation.

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