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From: dlarson@blake.u.washington.edu (Dale Larson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: RE: Old AmigaLibDisk material
Message-ID: <11395@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 90 22:02:06 GMT
References: <9654@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <35991@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: The Evergreen State College,  WA
Lines: 88
In-Reply-To: <14089@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>

In article <14089@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com> you Fred Fish writes:
>In article <35991@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:
>>Which brings me to a rambling comment concerning some archives sites removing
>>"old" Fish Disks ... DON'T.  Some of the MOST valuable code examples for the
>>Amiga can be found on early Fish Disks (i.e. #5).  The program I cited above
>>is on Fish Disk #36, and just yesterday I referred someone to Fish Disk #79
>>for the source to Chuck McManis' "INFO" clone.  Just because something may
>>have been written 4, 5 or 6 years ago does NOT make it obsolete ... in fact,

but sometimes it does - it depends on what it is (some things are necessaryily
dependent on a particular version of a particular compiler, or whatever) and 
on how it was written (some people write code in such a way as to make it
dependent on things it shouldn't depend on).  Stuff becomes obsolete for lots
of other reasons, too (bug fixes, better ways to do it, etc.)

>>some of the early programs were so good that no-one has been able to improve
>>upon them.  Even most of the early Usenet Amiga discussions from mid-1985 are
>>still valuable today (which is why I've kept those archives all these years).
>
>Good comment Thad.  Examination of some of the early disks, and then
>some of the latest, will show that the "flavor" of the library has
>changed substantially over the years.  A depressingly common portion
>of the description of each item on some of the newer disks is "binary only".
>People seem more reluctant these days to release source.

There is one big problem that the 3000 and 2.0 and 400 of Fred's Fine Disks
creates.  If one is interested in a program from any of those 400
disks, one has to figure out wether it is obsolete or not, and I'm sure
many of us have already wasted a fair amount of time on this (I know I have!).

I don't advocate getting rid of the old disks, but a lot of stuff on a lot
of disks is obsolete because newer versions are available, because vastly
superior other programs are available, because compilers (and utilities)
have gone through a lot of changes, because the operating system has 
expanded to fill previously unmet needs, etc.

For at least the last six months, I've been really wanting either a new
series of disks which did not contain obsolete material (below version 5 of
either C compiler, not 2.0 compatible, not grossly inferior to other 
similar programs, not superceded by a more recent release, etc.).  I figure 
that such an update would take up a _lot_ fewer than 400 disks and be 
significantly more useful because it would be more accessable (one would 
spend less time determining what was available for current needs).

I realize that such a new series may not be possible (it may not be possible
to decide what really is or isn't useful anymore even if you assume
that noone needed anything for less than current revisions of OS and compilers
and etc.) or it may not be practical because it'd take entirely too much work.

An alternative (to a new series of disks) would be to annotate the current 
series.  Volunteers could go through say, 25 disks each and generate additional
content listings indicating whether the programs are A3000/2.0 compatible,
which compiler (and rev. number) the source was written for, whether there
appear to be other programs on any of the FF disks which are suited to 
solving the same problems, whether the source uses ANSI features (i.e.
prototyping), etc.  Even this alternative might not be practical or even
possible.  

Mr. Fish seems to be in a much better possition to judge the feasability of 
of either of these improvements.  If he thinks one feasable and desireable
and he is willing to coordinate it, I am willing to volunteer _some_ time
and effort to help make it happen.  

I am _very_ gratefull for all of the time and effort and etc. that Fred
has already put into his disks!!!





















--
-Dale Larson  (dlarson@blake.u.washington.edu)