Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!cliffhanger
From: cliffhanger@cup.portal.com (clifford cliff heyer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: DEC MASSBUS
Message-ID: <21231@cup.portal.com>
Date: 12 Aug 89 19:11:19 GMT
References: <21162@cup.portal.com> <5518@sybase.sybase.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 50

Jon, 
I agree with you! Here is a letter I just mailed to them
over ARIS. Don't know if they will print it, so here it
is:

TO: LETTER TO THE EDITOR
RE: THE PROBLEMS WITH X PROGRAMMING/D. BYNON
FROM: CLIFF HEYER
			
Although the DECWindows program as discussed in "The Problems With
X Programming" (DP, 8/89, P. 106) may frighten some, some additional
comments are in order. 

1) DECWindows in its present form is more a software engineering tool
than it is a MIS DP applications tool. As time passes, this will change.
Initially, the purpose is to get "systems software" ported to DECwindows.
Later DEC will worry about "the rest of us."

2) The increase in the number of lines is not really that bad, 
depending on your point of view. For example, systems
software typically has 300,000+ lines of source code. Even if you 
increase the user-interface code by 10-20 times, 
the total line count changes by less than 1%. 

3) Keep in mind that C generates fewer machine 
instructions per statement than does typical application languages such as
COBOL, for example, so those 4 pages of C are not the same as 4 pages
of COBOL.

4) Numerous 'CASE' products have appeared in the UNIX world and on PCs
for interactive generation of dialog boxes, windows, etc., and these tools
output C stubs for use in your applications. In some cases they end up as 
compiled functions callable from COBOL, BASIC, etc., so that the user never
actually has to use C. Eventually I predict VAXset will be expanded to
include such tools, but in the meantime we'll have to do it 
"the old fashioned way."

5) Hot C programmers write 500+ lines of code a day and are not 
likely to worry about a extra pages of C code for DECWindows.

==========
I think the folks at DEC Professional are not "engineers" but
MBA types who have learned about computers from a user's
point of view, and not from a solid engineering background. Thus
engineers will always be able to pick out inaccuracies and 
inconsistencies in their writing.

On the other hand, their publication has helped me many times
as a computer "user" and I regard it highly from this point of
view.  (Have you used  ARIS? It's TOUGH after using usenet!)