Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!UBVMSC.CC.BUFFALO.EDU!V067MAJP From: V067MAJP@UBVMSC.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (Arion) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: dissassembly Message-ID: Date: 14 Jan 90 19:26:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 28 (This has to do with the thread about about documented source for TOS etc. where Allan Pratt makes an argument involving developers taking advantage of "features" (my word, definitely not his). Sorry for not quoting) What I don't understand is why don't the excellent development team at Atari just go ahead and make the changes and break all the programs that don't follow the rules. I'm not a developer, but I doubt that there was any documentation that said 2 successive mallocs would yield neighboring blocks. (same for other examples) It seems to me (IMHO) that if developers keep taking advantage of "side-effects" and Atari tries it's best to keep programs from breaking, eventually, you won't be able to revise TOS at all. I mean, if a program breaks because a programmer takes advantage of an undocumented or illegal "feature" which isn't there at the next os revision, isn't that the programmer's fault? Also, about working around bugs in TOS, there is a legal way of checking TOS version, right? So, can't you write your program so it uses a "workaround" for TOS 1.0 but does things the right way for TOS 1.4 (sort of like how Ian Lepore's GEMFAST bindings simulates the TOS 1.4 file_selector if your TOS is <1.4) or whatever the case may be? (I think they're right. Maybe Atarians ARE militant :-) ) John v067majp@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu