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From: djohnson@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Why Amiga Gurus????
Message-ID: <16360@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 91 23:20:00 GMT
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In article <3680.27ad65e7@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu> rlcollins@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (Ryan 'Gozar' Collins) writes:
>Are Programs so hard to write for the Amiga that every PD prg is bug 
>ridden? Or is a bad experience with a minute few.

Probably, just those few programs...  My current environment has lots
of PD/Shareware programs running, with rarely any problem.  Some of
the things I run are inherently 'asking for trouble' - like input
handlers - but work fine.  I don't push things to their limits, so I
don't find as many problems as other people.  If there's a problem
with PD software, I can usually upgrade to a new version.  Commercial
packages I am stuck with (like Sculpt 3D which fails to work correctly
with my 68020, but which I can't afford to upgrade).

I think part of the problem - which exists on most computers - is that
there isn't a whole testing division shaking these utilities out
before the user gets them.  Also, the author may not be able to test
the program on all the various combos of Amigas out there (such as
machines with 1M chip ram, accelerators, etc).  The early Macintosh
computers solved part of this problem by trying to make all the
machines look identical.  Nowdays, I see them crash more often than my
Amiga (even though I rarely use a Mac).  Clones aren't a big problem,
since recovering from a crash is usually very quick (branch to
command.com and continue), but PD software on Clones still has a
similar crash rate from what I've seen.

As an example, I wrote a PD 'background' utility.  I did this in my
spare time, like most PD stuff is done.  Within a week after giving it
to some sample people, bugs were found that I wouldn't have found
after a year of testing.  Partly because I didn't have the particular
setups that people had, and partly because I didn't run the program
the same way.  I also wasn't running all the various other utilities
out there to find out incompatabilities (ie, I assumed they all
followed the rules, so things would be safe).  Even after fixing these
problems, as soon as it became public, other problems popped up -
enough menu items to overflow the screen, etc.  People had crashes
that I couldn't duplicate - making finding the bug hard.  I also
didn't expect that the program would be even remotely popular, or more
time would have been spent verifying everything (it worked for ME, and
if a few other people wanted it great, but midnight calls from
Australia wanting upgrades?)  I think these sorts of problems would
have occured on most computers (crashes on UNIX systems would be
benign though) - well.. on some computers, that type of utility
wouldn't have even been attempted.

>How hard is it really to prg for the Amiga? (Just in case I get a new 
>computer someday!)

Well, harder then a UNIX filter, and easier than a UNIX device driver
:-) Definately easier than early Macintosh versions, and definately
less frustrating than current Mac versions.  Depends upon what you
want to do also.
-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
  - Political correctness is Turing undecidable.