Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!emory!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!wjs
From: wjs@milton.u.washington.edu (William Jon Shipley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Becoming a NeXT Developer (summary)
Message-ID: <11357@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 90 04:35:39 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.034802.26122@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 22

I've had both good and bad luck getting support from NeXT.

When I was just a student, I'd send in bug reports, and get mail back saying,
(I'm not making this up) "Thanks for your bug report, it now has tracking
number #229039.  Please do not send bug reports directly to NeXT, send them
instead to your local NeXT representative."  Who that was, I never figured
out, I just stopped bothering.

When I was working at Stanford Linear Accelerator (registered developers),
it was great.  I'd send bug reports and get prompt and cheery thank-yous,
and when I'd ask technical questions (say, about PostScript), I'd get very
nice responses, even when sometimes I'd discover what I'd asked was
really in the manual.  (They never said, "Hey, fool, didn't you read those
books you got?")

If you are really doing development, I'd say being registered is worth it,
because they really do answer their mail.  Personally, I don't have the
$900 to spend on developer's class, so until some company hires me again, I 
guess I'll figure things out for myself.

-william shipley
no longer -sniff- a registered developer