Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!phoenix
From: phoenix@ms.uky.edu (R'ykandar Korra'ti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Difficulty in programming
Message-ID: <15396@s.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 90 14:19:14 GMT
References: <2487@zipeecs.umich.edu> <1990Jun2.063414.10292@agate.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: phoenix@ms.uky.edu (R'ykandar Korra'ti)
Organization: El'n'tk National Spaceport, Mission Control
Lines: 39

In article <1990Jun2.063414.10292@agate.berkeley.edu> laba-1ei@e260-2f (Joseph Chung) writes:
>In article <2487@zipeecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin)
>writes:
>>It is just as easy, and often far easier to write
>>stuff for the Amiga than most other systems around.
>In an IBM (no flames please!), if I want to put a character anywhere on the
>screen, I just [write directly to a memory location]
>How would you accomplish this in an Amiga?
>1. Create my own screen, or should it be my window (damn, where did I put
>    my copy of NewWindow struct ...)
     Very invalid. This is giving the IBM the benefit of having a screen
set up already, which is always done automatically by the hardware. (Even
ignoring the fact that it's the only screen available, and that you're
insuring that your programme will be harder to port by writing directly to
the hardware).
     Give the Amiga the same benefit - in the form, say, of an open,
full-screen CLI - and you can put a character at location X using a simple
escape code sequence. (You can also do this with the IBM, as I'm sure you
know.)
     Now: let's try it the other way (reversing the prejuduce for a moment):
     Let's open a graphics screen with at least one window and pull-down
menus and a mouse pointer. At the same time, we want to keep our original
command screen (Workbench on the Amiga; the text-based command.com "screen"
on the IBM) available through some sort of switching mechanism (of your
choice.) Using pre-supplied windowing routines other than those provided
by the operating system or a standard compiler (say, Turbo Pascal) is NOT
allowed. I think you'll find it's a lot easier on the Amiga, no?
>In short, I would like you to show
>me how programming a multitasking system can be *easier* than programming a
>monotasking one.
     Multi-tasking versus mono-tasking is not a factor in difficulty of
programming. See: windows 3.0, where you sample MS-DOS programme will run
concurrently with other MS-DOS programmes (Multitasking, sort of) or along
with pure MS-DOS (Single-tasking) thanks to the wonders of virtual machines.
                                                    - R'ykandar.
-- 
| R'ykandar Korra'ti | Editor, LOW ORBIT | PLink: Skywise | CIS 72406,370 |
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