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From: chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Obligatory beginning-Mac-programmer questions
Message-ID: <7225@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 90 03:19:10 GMT
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 67
References:<2392@milton.acs.washington.edu> <2217@husc6.harvard.edu> <7179@goofy.Apple.COM> <2234@husc6.harvard.edu>

In article <2234@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) 
writes:
> A couple of things worth noting:
> 
>         1) MacApp 2.0b9 is the latest shipping version from APDA. As far 
as I'm
> concerned, it's not particularly important that anything other than APDA-
> released versions of MacApp are supported. It takes me a pair of 16-hour
> days to figure out the changes and implement new tweaks and find the 
problems
> and recommend some changes to Steve Friedrich.

Understood and appreciated, believe me!  Perhaps I should have made more 
clear that what THINK Pascal 3.0 supports is precisely what's available to 
the world at large, and it does it extremely well.

>         2) Versions since 2.0b9 have introduced significant archtectural
> changes - changes which, in my humble opinion, should bever be made this
> late in the beta cycle.

Well, that's why it's beta.  Sometimes an architectural change solves a 
multitude of problems.  And part of MacApp 2.0's charter was pretty much 
to start with a clean architectural slate--MacApp 2.0xx is very, very 
different from 1.1.1, for example.

I really wish that it had been frozen for you guys before you had to ship, 
but we just weren't able to do it.  I really _am_ sorry about that.

>         3) MacApp will compile practically out of the box as far as most
> prospective users are concerned: all they need to do is install MacApp
> as instructed by the MacApp docs, install the THINK MacApp compatibility
> package as instructed by our doc, run the converter, and that's it. No
> manual changes to MacApp are required. The automatic changes which are
> applied address differences in runtime architecture between THINK Pascal
> and MPW Pascal; the MacApp group has been more than helpful in making
> changes to MacApp to accomodate differences in the two compilers and 
> linkers.

And you guys have done a fantastic job of making THINK meet us halfway; I 
don't wish to minimize that point at all.

> Sorry to sound snappish, but I've spent the past two 16-hour days getting
> MacApp 2.0b12 to work.

Really, Rich, I'm sure that all of us here, especially in MacDTS, 
appreciate that; it'll be a major boon to Apple, to Symantec, to both of 
our developers, and ultimately to the users who will have access to more 
robust and functional software as a direct result of your efforts.  After 
all, that's really what it's all about--the users and what they can do, 
and how well.

Thanks for the blood, sweat, and tears, and please pass that along to the 
rest of the THINK languages team(s).
> R.

__________________________________________________________________________
                                Paul Snively
                      Macintosh Developer Technical Support
                             Apple Computer, Inc.

1st Choice: Paul_Snively.DTS@qm.gateway.apple.com
2nd Choice: CHEWBACCA@applelink.apple.com
Last Choice: chewy@apple.com

Just because I work for Apple Computer, Inc. doesn't mean that I believe 
what they believe, or vice-versa.
__________________________________________________________________________