Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!uunet!munnari.oz.au!manuel!ccadfa!prolix!dac
From: dac@prolix.ccadfa.oz.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: How to improve Workbench 2.0!
Message-ID: <18a2e75c.ARN2927@prolix.ccadfa.oz.au>
Date: 5 Feb 91 11:40:44 GMT
References: <1991Feb1.205738.13579@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <5Juuw4w163w@kennels.actrix.gen.nz>
Reply-To: ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au!prolix!dac@munnari.OZ.AU
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Organization: More like Mis~, really.
Lines: 80

In article <5Juuw4w163w@kennels.actrix.gen.nz>, Sleeping Beagle writes:

> huebner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Robert E. Huebner) writes:
> 
> > Overall I've noticed install procedures have been maturing rapidly in most
> > software.  Developers are catching on.
> 
> You probably don't want to hear this but....

Correct.  But you went on and posted it, so now you'll suffer the consequences
of your actions:

> I just installed Windows 3.0 on a 386.

Yeah.  11.9Mb of stuff, just to implement an environment that is kludgy,
awkward, memory hungry, and resource voracious!  Dead brilliant.  AmigaDos 1.3
is, by comparison, a 256K rom image, and a few programs, and provides ALL of
what Windows 3 does, and more, in a better, cleaner, faster, and overall, a
far more hoopy fashion, than old Mickeysoft did with their Windows guff.

However, since Windows 3 is not the gist of your message, just take my flame
text as an indication of my level of dissatisfaction with your arrogant
smugness regarding:

> The installation procedure was really very easy 

As long as you have a spare 11.9Mb of disk space lying around ...

> - not only would it ask you before it changed
> the autoexec/startup but it had the option of editing the changes
> before they happened, or saving the changed file with a different
> name so as to allow you to look at it and import only the changes
> you wanted.

Golly.  So Mickeysoft have learnt the art of COPYING text files now, and
SAVING backups of them, that you can revert to in case their (usually
hopeless) abortive INSTALL procedures happen to make a complete pigs breakfast
of the entire operation.  Chalk one up to Microsoft's technical wizards for
that, eh.

How difficult is it to ASK for information from a user, and act upon the
response?

When I purchased M2Sprint Modula 2 (by Martin Taillefer), it came with an
install program that modified one's startup-sequence, gave you full control
over which drive, partition, and directory you wanted to place the environment
on, had large, medium and small memory models catered for (deciding whether to
configure the environment to load all the include, link and symbol files into
a RAD:  disk, or merely the compiler and editor, or nothing at all), and did
it all neatly and effectively, with a fully intuitionized interface, in a mere
19K file.

How humungously oversized was this Windows 3 install program?  How many
overlays were needed to get it running?  How long did it take to achieve it's
'magic'.  How much money, indeed, time, did this miracle of modern software
engineering set you back?

All for a suite of programs that, (and I quote a rabid IBM lover here) "Is
really only good for playing a neat game of solitaire".

> Now Windows 3.0's installation procedure probably had more work
> put into it than Workbench 2.0 or System 7's entire OS,

Wotawanka!

> but it was still something to aspire to.

...  if you were used to installation procedures for more archaic machines,
such as TRS-80's, IBM MVS machines, or perhaps a HP 41C calculator.

Afraid that your 'yew bewt' example, was nothing more than a disguised IBM Vs
Amiga flame.

> **      Official Signature for Sleeping Beagle (aka Thomas Farmer)! 

Dac
--
 _l _  _   // Andrew Clayton. Canberra, Australia.         I Post  .
(_](_l(_ \X/  ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au!prolix!dac@munnari.OZ.AU       . .  I am.
--------------Phone +61 6 285 2537 (+10GMT) // I cannot currently send email.