Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!mmdf
From: BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: An Intuition.device?
Message-ID: <30021@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 10 Sep 90 19:03:16 GMT
Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu
Lines: 34


   There have been messages here in which some people have complained 
about how much easier it is to develop software under on the NeXT and
on IBM & clones under Windows 3.0.  My question is: why wasn't this
addressed in AmigaOS2.0?

   In some of his speeches, RJ Mical has told about how it was the intention
of the original Amiga OS developers to make Intuition a device instead of
a collection of routines (as it is now).  Had Intuition been made a 
device, software development would have been a hundred times easier,
because thing like opening screens and windows, creating menu items, and
receiving mouse input from the user would be done by passing codes to
the Intuition device and receiving information from it.  

   The only problem with the idea of making Intuition a device is speed.
The device would have to receive codes from a program, and translate them
into the proper calls to the main Intuition routines.  However, with
the advent of the A3000, I don't think speed is much of a problem anymore.

   The big thing about this idea is that it can still be done.  There
is absolutely no reason why this Intuition device could not still be
written.  Existing programs would continue to call the Intuition routines
directly, but future programs could use the Intuition device instead,
speeding development of future software.

   If Commodore will not produce this Intuition device, I wish some 
other enterprising Amiga developer would.  This would be a great boost
to the Amiga, and would constitute the first major addition to the Amiga's
OS since the Amiga first came out five years ago.  (As of now, all of
the Amiga's OS enchancements -- including 2.0 -- consist of large 
numbers of minor changes, with no really big changes)

      
                                 -MB-