Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!jason From: jason@madnix.UUCP (Jason Blochowiak) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: KansasFest happened! Message-ID: <1437@madnix.UUCP> Date: 30 Jul 90 07:20:20 GMT References: <43263@apple.Apple.COM> <11982@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> Reply-To: jason@madnix.UUCP (Jason Blochowiak) Organization: ARP Software, Madison, WI Lines: 93 In article <11982@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> jonah@amos.ucsd.edu (Jonah Stich) writes: [In response to an article by Dave Lyons about KFest] >Me too! I'd particularly like to hear about the animation toolset and the new >sound tools. Well, they were pretty cool. I haven't had time to beat on the new sound tools (or read through the docs), but, from a superficial standpoint, I was impressed. Mensch (the guy responsible for the Animation Toolkit) says that the toolkit can't nuke custom coding, and is primarily there for people who don't want to get into the guts of dealing with speedy animation, but do want some of the results. I can't say for sure (seeing as I also didn't get to beat on this one), but from what he described, his assessment was correct: If you want top- speed animation, you're going to have to do it yourself; however, if you want reasonable speed animation, you should be able to get it out of the toolkit. It sounds pretty versatile, and moderately powerful. [Dave Lyons wrote:] >>I spent most of the time either doing presentations (on debugging >>and writing DAs/inits/CDevs), or helping attack bugs in the >>bug-busting room. Let me publicly compliment you on that: Dave and Matt did a fine job on the content and presentation, and the Q&A session was quite useful, despite my amnesia ;) (which certainly couldn't be attributed to them...) >Okay, Dave, I'm curious. What advice WOULD you give for debugging these >particularly CDevs? I'm working on one right now, and it's a REAL pain in >the but to debug. Also, NDA and Init debuggin would be of interest, as I'm >working on those, too. >>A special version of GSBug and the new Nifty List 3.0 were instumental >>in the short life expectancy of any bug walking through the door. The new Nifty List is _much_ improved. I can't say much about the new version of GSBug, as I haven't used it much before, but it's been quite useful these last few days. (I didn't use either before - now, both are proving nearly indispensable) As far as debugging techniques for non-apps go: One thing that you can do in non-production releases of stuff is: PushLong #0 _GetPort PushLong #0 _GetWMgrPort _SetPort ... _SetPort For the "..." you can do an EraseRect() of some screen area, and then draw some junk into that area (e.g. the values of some critical variables). Of course, you can get some really ugly flicker & screen results, but the Window Manager port is always there (for NDAs & CDevs, anyways), and you can either use an existing app or a custom "host" app to provide tools for whatever info you want to show yourself. This is basically an alternative to the "do a GetMouse(), if in the u/l corner, switch to the text screen to show what you've printed there" - which has some advantages over the method I just suggested (primarily that you have 24 lines of scrolling "history", which you don't have if you're EraseRect()'ing over your info). One of the advantages is that you don't have to be the app to mangle the screen in this fashion... There are also some provisions (which, of course, also have their limitations) in the new version of GSBug for this sort of thing. Just out of curiousity, is Apple planning on releasing shells for the various thingies in the System folder? Such as the CDev shell available for the Mac? (I'm pretty sure that Apple didn't write it, but that's kinda besides the point) I'd be willing to bet that if Apple provided the source for something like that, it could make debugging various things much easier... I'm hoping to write up a little something about KansasFest '90, but I've tried doing something of that sort before and have gotten hopelessly sidetracked, so if I don't get around to it: I enjoyed KF alot, and it was definitely worth the time and the money (IMHO, of course). It's great to go to if you want to meet the faces behind the e-mail accounts, and, of course, the communication tends to be a lot more dynamic than is possible through e-mail, or even over the phone (I finally got to meet some of the people that I've been doing work for...). The sessions, although quite useful and (with one major exeception) informative, were secondary for me... >>David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems >Jonah Stich >jonah@amos.ucsd.edu -- Jason Blochowiak - jason@madnix.UUCP or, try: astroatc!nicmad!madnix!jason@spool.cs.wisc.edu "Education, like neurosis, begins at home." - Milton R. Saperstein