Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:41317 comp.sys.mac.programmer:10068 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!captkidd From: captkidd@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Cavero Belaunde) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: alt.macgnu Message-ID: <15520@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 31 Oct 89 16:58:45 GMT References: <87@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1150@mipos3.intel.com> <10131@cadnetix.COM> Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: captkidd@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Cavero Belaunde) Followup-To: comp.sys.mac Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 35 In article wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu (William M. Bumgarner) writes: >Hopefully, MacMach will help break down the wall between the system software >and the programmer that Apple has forced on all of us ("we will tell you >what you NEED to know and no more"). What do you exactly mean by this? I might be wrong, but it seems to me that you want to program the Macintosh using knowledge that Apple does not give out. Do you realize that maybe Apple has a damn good reason to not give out this information? Such as the fact that it's trying to give out information which will remain valid for a long time (and not change with the next release of the system software)? Such as the fact that implicit in giving out this technical info is the promise not to change it so as to make software that relies on it unworkable in the future? Let's face it, it would be nice to be able to write software that goes directly into the Mac internals - but all that hardware-dependent and system-software-version dependent software would break. One of the great aspects of the Mac is that, by and large, the same software runs on pretty much all the Macs, and that exceptions to this rules are limited by Apple in scope as much as possible. There are enough problems *right* *now* with the *current* guidelines in place with programmers breaking various rules and doing their own thing, which then causes the software to break with newer system software releases. We don't need any more. -Ivanski "Date: when two people go to a place where there are no computers, talk about anything except computers, and do analog stuff afterwards." -Guy Kawasaki Internet: captkidd@athena.mit.edu Ivanski