Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!gatech!emcard!wa4mei!kd4nc!km4ba!alan
From: alan@km4ba.UUCP (Alan Barrow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: PROGRAM COSTS
Summary: Lotus = Bad Code
Message-ID: <303@km4ba.UUCP>
Date: 20 Oct 89 02:58:09 GMT
References: <891010.08342625.067245@SFA.CP6> <1989Oct16.133930.21837@utfyzx.uucp>
Reply-To: alan@km4ba.UUCP (Alan Barrow)
Organization: km4ba's packet radio gateway, Atlanta Ga
Lines: 33

In article <1989Oct16.133930.21837@utfyzx.uucp> harrison@utfyzx.UUCP (David Harrison) writes:
>
>Generalising these numbers, we might conclude that it is people who
>think good software should cost less the $100 that are "just plain ..."
>-- 

Actually, I conclude that the problem lies with the way Lotus wrote their
software..... They welded the sw to the HW platform, which not only made
ports difficult, but helped make "compatibility" into the curse of the PC-DOS 
world. ( 100 man-years to port is the price you pay for squeezing that
extra bit of performance out of IBM's sluggard son)

Even Lotus's current products show the old school attitude when compared
to Excel & others.. ( I canned Lotus at 2.0? ) Excel is virtually device
independant compared to lotus. I have no sympathy for applications that insist
on reinventing the user interface. It will prob be running on 4 or more O/S
( Including unix ) while lotus is still working on the latest rev. for dos.


Not that Excel is the perfect sw package (Just better than most :->), but 
in most cases, the more rules (O/S, bios, etc) you break, the more trouble
you will have porting.... (every programmer knows this, we just do it anyway!)

So.... I *do* believe that good sw can be cheap & portable!
(and *no*, I do not work for a SW company :-> )

>David Harrison                            | "God does not play dice with
>Dept. of Physics, Univ of Toronto         |  the universe." -- Einstein
>UUCP: uunet!attcan!utgpu!utfyzx!harrison  | "Quit telling God what to
>BITNET: HARRISON@UTORPHYS                 |  do." -- Niels Bohr

Alan Barrow			"I am not a computer person......
..!gatech!kd4nc!km4ba!alan	           but I play one on TV......"