It's a nice idea. One possible implementation could use a Unix domain socket to communicate between client and server. Or even regular sockets to support network transparency. We can call the server X and after eleven versions end up where we are already.
X11 and wide idea of terminals go in hand. It's a problem of abstraction and platforms evolving. So I think, that you either end up with something like Web front-ends of today or something more structured, but far simpler like various TUIs or maybe Tcl/Tk with it's windowing shell wish. I think that some middle ground is possible, but hard and shifting quite fast.
I have liked the idea of NeWS for a very long time. Sadly NeWS was born and died long before it was viable: postscript has always been difficult to write a VM for and unfriendly to application programmers, machines were significantly slower, and NeWS itself was very much vendor-locked.
However, things are different now. We could embed Lua or WASM into the display server, and you'd have a much more programmer-friendly platform that can run efficiently enough to feel snappy. We have more memory, so you don't need to share toolkits between applications.
Comments
It's a nice idea. One possible implementation could use a Unix domain socket to communicate between client and server. Or even regular sockets to support network transparency. We can call the server X and after eleven versions end up where we are already.
X11 and wide idea of terminals go in hand. It's a problem of abstraction and platforms evolving. So I think, that you either end up with something like Web front-ends of today or something more structured, but far simpler like various TUIs or maybe Tcl/Tk with it's windowing shell wish. I think that some middle ground is possible, but hard and shifting quite fast.
I have liked the idea of NeWS for a very long time. Sadly NeWS was born and died long before it was viable: postscript has always been difficult to write a VM for and unfriendly to application programmers, machines were significantly slower, and NeWS itself was very much vendor-locked.
However, things are different now. We could embed Lua or WASM into the display server, and you'd have a much more programmer-friendly platform that can run efficiently enough to feel snappy. We have more memory, so you don't need to share toolkits between applications.
Maybe it's time to revive the concept.