Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ephraim
From: ephraim@Think.COM (Ephraim Vishniac)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: I gotta stop reading MacTutor
Keywords: bad advice
Message-ID: <30951@news.Think.COM>
Date: 12 Oct 89 13:30:49 GMT
Sender: news@Think.COM
Reply-To: ephraim@Think.COM (Ephraim Vishniac)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 27

I was leafing through the October MacTutor last night, and was
amazed once more at the technical depths to which (some of)
their writers sink.  In an article on writing INITs, J. Peter
Hoddie cites TN212's warning against tail patches, then goes
on to say:

	Unfortunately, any trap patch[es] written using the C
	function technique described here are effectively
	tail patches.  However, I have yet to find a case
	where this actually causes a problem.  Furthermore,
	in many cases it is actually impossible to obtain the
	desired result without writing a tail patch.  It seems
	unlikely that Apple will declare war on tail patches
	in future Systems, as there are already tons of tail
	patches out there.  However, it is possible that this
	could cause problems in some rare instances.  Unfortunately,
	the alternative is to write lots more assembly code,
	and that isn't a terribly appealing option.

In other words, it's OK to break the rules if you're lazy and don't
care much.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Ephraim Vishniac    ephraim@think.com   ThinkingCorp@applelink.apple.com
 Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142
        One of the flaws in the anarchic bopper society was