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From: joe@gistdev.UUCP (Joe Brownlee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: THINK C 4.0
Message-ID: <599@gistdev.UUCP>
Date: 31 Aug 89 15:18:03 GMT
References: <581@gistdev.UUCP> <2532@husc6.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: joe@gistdev.UUCP (Joe Brownlee)
Organization: Global Information Systems Technology Inc., Savoy, IL
Lines: 50

In article <2532@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.UUCP (Rich Siegel) writes:
>In article <581@gistdev.UUCP> joe@gistdev.UUCP (Joe Brownlee(me)) writes:
>>One of the things I have liked about LSC was the ability to bring UNIX work
>>home, and be able compile to run it reasonably under LSC on the Mac.  I think
>>that some of the omissions of from ANSI in TC 4.0 will be a problem for me in
>>trying to continue to do this.
>
>	I'm impressed. THINK C 3.0 was much less ANSI-conformant than THINK C
>4.0 is, and you were able to port ANSI programs to it?

OK, I didn't say _exactly_ what I meant.  What I meant is that I have taken
UNIX C programs to LSC 3.0.  We are, and have been, moving our UNIX C work to
ANSI conformant compilers (and our MS-DOS work, too, for that matter), so the
ANSI compatibility issue has recently become important.  We do actually have
to keep our code in both ANSI and non-ANSI forms for different platforms at
the moment, but we are in the process of moving away from non-ANSI compilers.

>	Trying to draw conclusions from the reasoning behind design decisions
>is a losing proposition, in my opinion. UNLESS the manual says "we will never
>ever in a million years come out with a full ANSI compiler", you're misleading
>a lot of people (including yourself) by drawing this conclusion. "We didn't
>do it in this version because it required fundamental changes" IS NOT THE SAME
>as "we will never do it".

OK, that makes me feel better about this.  I certainly did not mean my original
posting to be a "flame" on Symantec, but I felt (I think justified) concern
based on what the manual had to say.  As I stated in my original posting, I work
on the development of a 4GL, and I understand trying to walk the line between
telling users your expected future direction (especially regarding potentially
incompatible changes), and not comitting to specific features which will be
added.   I simply hope that full ANSI conformance will be offered at some future
time (and that I won't have to pay mega-$ for it :-).

I _do_ want to repeat that I am very happy with TC 4.0, especially in the
Mac-only-code area, and I hope that you guys keep up the good work, Rich.
Thanks for the response.

>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Rich Siegel
> Staff Software Developer
> Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group
> Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu
> UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe Brownlee       | Captain, please -- not in front of the Klingons.
GIST, Inc.         |                                -- Mr. Spock, Star Trek V
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