Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!paperboy!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!tcdcs!maths.tcd.ie!gwills From: gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: All about sys 7.0 Message-ID: <1991Mar27.121607.9672@maths.tcd.ie> Date: 27 Mar 91 12:16:07 GMT References: <1991Mar21.095051.29206@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <593@genco.bungi.com> Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Lines: 71 In article <593@genco.bungi.com> rad@genco.bungi.com (Bob Daniel) writes: >This makes me squirm a bit that Apple says MF is multitasking. At best, MF >is multiapplication. Reading uninformed peoples' comments who know nothing, but pontificate freely makes me squirm >Try bringing up a dialog and watch all background >processes come to a hault. No they don't. Only with badly written programs. All MacApp-using programs don't do this, for example. >During a download, pull up a dialog from another >application and watch the download come to a hault and eventually cancel out. I have done this many times. It just ain't so for well written programs. Don't criticise a good OS. criticise bad programmers >While an application has a progress dialog up, try putting it in the >background and pull up something else. Why? Is it supposed to turn me on or something? All that happens is that I keep typing my Word file and the progress bar keeps on filling until it's full. It then uses the notification manager to tell me it's finished (just in case I obscured the window). >but is MF really all that cooperative? Only if the developer >makes it friendly? I don't think so, even if the developer uses modal dialogs, >he/she has no control of allowing background tasking to occur (without doing >some acrobatic tricks). If developpers write bad code, is that Apple's fault ? A modal dialog is exactly what it says it is. Modal. It stops everything. If you don't want to stop everything, DON'T USE MODAL DIALOGS. I mean it's not like they're particulary wonderful or necessary! >Then there is menus. Even under Sys7, pulling down a menu will hault all >background tasks. > This would be a problem for people with major disabilities, as if you need to take 5-10 seconds to choose a menu item, that could cause problems, but for most people? What's the problem with a 0.5 s pause? It's just the same as if another program was using the time. >Sys8 could compete with OS/2 and UNIX if it was capable of >preemptive multitasking. Picture the scene: A dealer's room i a major city... Customer: "I'm very impressed. The graphiocs are excellent, the range of packages are very good. It should take far less time to train our staff to use than UNIX. The printer facilities are so much better and I really liked the voice-mail system. There's just one thing.. I noticed that when the spread- sheet was recalculating and I was typing, the clock was still working in the background as well? Was that *pre-emptive* multitasking or not?" Dealer: "Wee, no, it was co-operative" Customer: "Well in that case I'll just have to buy a UNIX box" Yawnn. In the real world people buy computers to DO things, not to BE things It's only compu-nerds and techies who worry about such subtelties. What percentage of company purchasers do you think would worry at all about the diffrerence between co-op and pre-em? It's only the developpers who get a rougher time (unless you use MacApp, of course) > >I'd like to hear unflammable comments... > There you go.