X servers and clients IS NOT BACKWARDS

[L. Adrian Griffis]

On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, David Nicol wrote:
> > Sorry if this sounds confusing - the people who made Xwindows were 
> > thinking backwards when they decided what to call the X 'server' and X 
> > 'client'.
> > 
> > -Lucas
> 
> 
> No they weren't.  The definitions are: "server" is a interface to
> a resource, and a "client" is something that uses a resource provided
> by a server.

Quite right, although I would have said that the server is a program
that mediates access to shared set of resources (the screen, keyboard,
and mouse) among some number of programs that want to display things
the screen, and collect keyboard and mouse events.  The server is the
PROGRAM that sits on the X-Terminal, running the hardware, and talking
to clients.  The clients are the application programs that want to
interact with the user (also a shared resource) at the X-Terminal,
and the clients are also often clients to other servers, such as
databases, news server, email servers, etc..

> The definitions are software-centric instead of user-centric.

For those that don't know, the Client-Server distinction is ALWAYS
define from a software centric point of view.  As with any words,
when people haven't really understand the words "client" and "server,
they have tried to make up a definitions in concepts that they
do understand.  Most people have the sense that the client is closer
to the user than the server (and it turns out that it is, in most
cases).

All of the confusion about the words "client" and "server" as applied
to X-Windows is a consequence of this habit many people have of making
up their own definitions of words they don't understand rather than
trying to learn the real definitions of these words.

Adrian