Dallas Usenix Contest Results

Lori Grob grob at chorus.fr
Fri Feb 1 13:45:22 AEST 1991


The following are the results of the contest at the Dallas Usenix.
The contest was to name features that you would like to see in a window
system. The rules of the contest (such as they were) were not
interpreted strictly.

Some entries came up again and again:

	windex - cleans all you windows at once
	the boss window manager - at the approach of your management
		your tetris game/rogue/news ... changes into
		an icon marked overtime 
	patriot window features
	scud window features

And Honarable Honarable mention to Henry Spencer who wanted a feature
that would let him delete the features that he didn't want and reclaim
the memory.

The following entries won Honorable Mention:

Pavolovian Response Windowing:	If a mouse button is depressed in an area
	of the screen that is not valid, an electric shock** will be given
	to the user via the mouse. This allows for a quicker learning 
	curve.

	**Requires hardware modification

	by Evan Marks

Benchmark Mode Window Decoration: The designated window suddenly appears
	more impressive than any other window on the screen. Causes confusion
	when applied to multiple windows simultaneously.

Uniforum Mode Window Enlargement: Doubles the size of the indicated window
	but halves the information content.

	by J. Schwab

An interactive C compiler with digitized sounds of Evi Nemeth's (Usenix
Board member and Professor) voice. If ever someone type's an obvious mistake
while editing a .c file, her voice will sound and laugh at you

	by Brent Cromley

4D option:  by analogy to the 3-D look of buttons in NeXtstep and Motif
	This option puts your workstationm into hyperspace. This allows
	you to display results before they are computed.

	by Eric Allman

Visual Focus: I was LOOKING at THAT window **** that's where I wanted
	my input to GO!  (Now how do I tell vi to "undo everything I did in
	the last 10 seconds?")

	by Dan Klein


The bad pun award to Evan Leibovitch for the following:
	An icon depiction of Sally Field: The Gidget Widget

3rd place to Rick Sabourin for:
MWM: the manager window manager. It intelligently reconfigures itself
	to the ineptitude of the user. In an emergency, it kills all
	windows and runs a Lotus emulator.

2nd place to Brent Cromley (a young man who obviously spent all his time
at the conference entering contests and hiding from his programming
professors) for:
An animated screen saver that displays several frames of Rob Kolstad (Usenix
Board member and moderator of the systems administration panel sessions)
dancing in a tutu.

1st prize to Ben Fried and Mark Kennedy for the following 6 entries
(sorted from good to best)
PWM: The Pencom Window Manager- Flirts with you until you actually start
	using it.

DBWM: Dan Bernstein's Window Manager Argues for 10 weeks before resizing your
	window.

ASPWM: Alt.sex.pictures window manager icons your mother never told
	you about.

AWM: Allman's window manager - A little cryptic but functional and we just
	love that secret debug feature.

SunWM Seperately sold components to iconify, move, resize, put up menus...
	Unbundled means more freedom for customers.

CMUWM: Not a window manager, just a place holder for the one you can buy
	from OSF or TransArc.


Lori S. Grob
Chorus syste`mes
6 avenue Gustave Eiffel			phone +33-1-30-64-82-17
F78182 Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines	fax   +33-1-30-57-00-66
FRANCE

email grob at chorus.fr
      grob%chorus.fr at uunet.uu.net



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