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From: gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: MacApp (was Re: 32-bit OS)
Message-ID: <968@maths.tcd.ie>
Date: 25 Aug 89 11:12:37 GMT
References: <22321@andante.UUCP> <1989Aug19.221033.2241@geology.wisc.edu> <8352@hoptoad.uucp> <34184@apple.Apple.COM> <8365@hoptoad.uucp> <
Reply-To: gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills)
Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin
Lines: 39

In article <10513@claris.com> peirce@claris.com (Michael Peirce) writes:
-In article <10612@fluke.COM> mce@tc.fluke.COM (Brian McElhinney) writes:
->
->You overlook one of the best kinds of software development: evolutionary.  A
->person, or project team, with "old stuff" has a lot of learning and experience
->invested in code that can be re-used for "NEW software".  Still, I would argue
->that the benefits of an object oriented language would most often out weigh
->re-using older code.
->
-When using MacApp I still reuse LOTS of old code (I have a MassMicro catridge
-filled with old code).  I don't reuse the event loop or other framework parts
-of the code, but lots of code snippits that do various things. 
-
  Just to add my opinion to Michael's; Here in rainy Ireland we wrote
  several medium sized applications in std. pascal. When we upgraded
  (and I *mean* upgraded) to using MacApp we found that the process was
  FAR easier then we imagined. E.g. an integrated scatterplot matrix 
  program which was a 1 year project was converted in 3 days. The main work
  was ditching the redundant bits, not writing new bits. I get people
  working on sub-sections of my project to write them in normal Pascal
  and then take a couple of hours to plug them into MacApp myself.
  They get the advantage of faster development, and so long as they don't
  write dreadful code, I have no problem slipping it in.
-
-MacApp/MPW is still slower than Think's products, but it is getting better.
-MacApp 1.0b9 improved MABuild quite a bit (THANKS!) and using Jasik's patch
-link can make turn around time very fast.  If you haven't looked at MacApp
-lately, it might be worth checking it out again...
-
 The slowness is a problem still. But the fact that it's easy to plug in
 STD code means I can test something new in LSP, and then just add it in.
 Things are a little slower when I have to use MacApp at the development
 stage, but not enough to worry me.

 In fact, I was slightly annoyed at the MABuild speedup. I used to be able
 to read a bit of MacUser or PCW while building. Now I don't get enough
 time to read more than a couple of sentences! :-\

 Graham Wills, Dept. of Statistics, TCD, Ireland.    gwills@maths.tcd.ie