GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

• Compile -O2
• use libmalloc
• Do performance measurements! (use cvspeed) Odds are high that performance of Motif and other heavily used software is less a bottle-neck than your own new, untuned code.

  The application also may itself benefit from tuning. This suggestion is more than theoretical -- it comes from looking at some real-world performance problems.

• Note that just because Motif (or Xt) shows up high on a list does not necessarily mean that Motif itself needs to be tuned. It often means that your application is needlessly doing expensive things.

  For example, if you repeatedly create and destroy hundreds of widgets, or if you force unnecessary widget geometry management, Motif or Xt functions will show up high on any performance chart. The real question is "does the application really need to be doing this?"

• No one ever said that developing good-looking efficient modern GUI's is simple -- the goal is a good interface for the end user, but one cost may be a certain amount of developer complexity.