Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!Devin_E_Ben-Hur
From: Devin_E_Ben-Hur@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Humorous bug in Sprint
Message-ID: <22297@cup.portal.com>
Date: 19 Sep 89 20:10:29 GMT
References: <21911@hodge.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 28

> I must assume that Sprint was, in reality, compiled with
> Microsoft C.  But, it seems funny that Borland would use their
> arch-rival's compiler on one of their own products.  Why not use
> Turbo C?
> 
> jdm@hodge.cts.com [uunet zardoz crash]!hodge!jdm
> James D. Murray, Ethnounixologist       TEL: (714) 998-7750 Ext. 129
 
   Sprint was originally a w.p. called FinalWord II developed and sold
by Mark of the Unicorn.  It was acquired and "Borlandized" at about
the same that Wizard C was acquired and Borlandized into Turbo C.
Presumably, the original product was developed with MSC.  I suspect
that there are third-party libraries and/or significant chunks of
assembler or less-than-portable C that make switching to TC a
significant chore.
   Most of the Sprint editor and shell were [re-]written by Borland
after the acquisition while most of the formatting, printer driving,
and file conversion programs were simply polished and extended.  It's
not all that supprising that the sprint development team is still
using MSC to make many of the older cof sprint.  I wouldn't
even be suprised if they're using MSC for the whole system -- the
engineering team was originally Borland "outsiders" and until the
more recent VROOMM and other internal Borland technology, there was
no compelling reason to switch to T previous development
tools other than compile speed and corporate political correctness.

Devin_Ben-Hur@Cup.Portal.Com
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