Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!samsung!emory!hubcap!sleepy!lsalomo
From: lsalomo@sleepy.uucp (Lawrence W Salomon)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.programmer
Subject: Re: PM  from SDK
Message-ID: <10890@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 90 18:11:35 GMT
References: <16134@rouge.usl.edu>
Sender: news@hubcap.clemson.edu
Reply-To: lsalomo@sleepy.UUCP (Lawrence W Salomon)
Organization: Clemson University Engineering Department
Lines: 33

I've never done any Windows programming, but after writing close to 30,000
lines of C code for OS/2 PM I will say the following things:

The learning curve is EXTREMELY steep initially, because of the forced 
difference in coding style, but once you get over-the-hump, it smooths out
a good bit.

Debugging window procedures is a pain, especially since (up to and including
OS/2 1.2) debuggers which debug PM programs cannot be PM programs themselves,
due to the way PM processes input (and a few other technical issues which I
will not go into here).  So, you are forced to use a text-mode debugger (the
only two I have ever used are CodeView and LogiTech, both of which have their
good and bad points) which is archaic at best.

I have seen some Windows source, and I will say that the OS/2 API's have 
Windows beat by a long shot, unless you are biased towards Unix (and are 
thus accustomed to names like those in Windows.  No flames regarding this
please...).

OS/2 (not PM) does preemptive multitasking, but because PM processes input
in a strange manner (there was once a big discussion regarding whether or
not this was a design flaw, but I don't remember where) you must follow
certain rules, or you are going to experience hangups in the input data
stream (and since a lot of things are based on input, the system appears
to freeze.  A good example of this is changing the window focus.  If one
program grabs the input queue and doesn't get back to it's polling loop
before the focus is changed, you don't notice the change until it does.).

I hope this helps a bit...Feel free to send me EMAIL offline if you wish to
discuss this further...

Cheers,
Q