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From: dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: union demo 2
Message-ID: <1991Apr7.190326.5477@wam.umd.edu>
Date: 7 Apr 91 19:03:26 GMT
References: <1991Apr05.082347.2154@ecst.csuchico.edu> <1991Apr5.202600.7995@wam.umd.edu> <1991Apr7.040622.5384@mailer.cc.fsu.edu>
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In article <1991Apr7.040622.5384@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu writes:
>Dave, these works are not commercial efforts!!  Some of these kids are not 
>even in High School yet, for cripes sake!  Recognize these demos for what 
>they are:  great demoes written by pirating groups.  The messages are    
>programming challenges and boasts of great hacks.

I know this is going to sound pedantic, but why should we applaud bad
programming practices?  OK, I'm impressed by the fact that M.C. Crakker
or whoever can put 522 colors on the screen, but I just have a hard
time giving praise to these folks, because if they continue to write
things that rely on hardware ideosynrcsies and internal TOS variables
they will cause endless headaches for everyone when they do release
commercial software.  The Care Bears' sample sequencer recently posted
is a perfect example.  That program is a complete disaster as far as
"coexisting in harmony with the system."  People don't WANT a file
selector that has little stars flying around the screen.  People don't
WANT to have to run the program off floppy, and put up with the thing
crashing all the time.  It's great that they managed to get 4 digitized
samples playing simultaneously.  I can tell you from experience that's
NOT easy.  But without some attention paid to good programming
practices and "the rules," the program is useless, IMHO.  Ask Allan
Pratt what he thinks about programs that rely on "undocumented features"
or circumvent GEMDOS and use their own floppy-disk handling code...

I am NOT trying to say that these programmers are not good; on the
contrary many of them seem to be very talented (especially if they're
as young as you say), but the last thing the world needs is a bunch of
people writing nonportable, non-fool-proof, and non-bullet-proof code.
The irony is that it's not that they _can't_ make robust, portable
programs.  Being such programming whiz-kids, it should be no problem.
They just don't care.  That's the part that I wish would change.

>                                                   What the heck is "general 
>purpose code"???  The general purpose of the Union demo is to amaze the eyes
>and ears, and create envy toward the members of the Union.  Sounds good to 
>me . . . 

Well, at the very least, "general-purpose code" in the case of a demo
means, "code that will run on all ST/TT machines".  (Within reason.  If
you write an STe or TT only demo, that's another matter.)

As I've pointed out before, there are many, many demos that don't run
on my machine because my monitor can't handle the UNDOCUMENTED forced
change to 50Hz.  Just sour grapes, you say?  Nope, I just wish that
these people would spend a little more time figuring out how to do
things the right way, rather than hacking the OS to pieces.

Trust me, most things like screen interrupts that put 512 colors on the
screen CAN be done such that the "great hack" will work on all ST's.

As for "envy," on the one hand you're saying that I shouldn't expect too
much of these people because they are high school kids, but on the other
hand you tell me tht the point of the demos is to make me impressed with
their programming genuis.  To me this is similar to saying, "There's
a really incredible ice skater I know.  She falls down a lot, but if
she can keep going she can do these _amazing_ jumps."

A lot of people consider Darek Mihocka to be a "whiz-kid," and he was
writing code when he was in high school too.  My impression, however,
is that he follows "the rules".  He writes great stuff (the 8-bit
emulator is certainly an impressive "hack"), but still manages to make
sure it's robust and TOS-version independent.  My point is that I am
personally more impressed by something like Quick ST than the Union
Demo in terms of programming ability.  Quick ST isn't showy, but it's a
great hack, and it works on every ST/TT in creation.  OK, so Quick ST
is a commercial product.  So what?  There's no reason those demo people
couldn't write commerical-quality software too.  They obviously have
plenty of spare time, and it would probably help them pay for college!

Again, just my opinion.

>The only thing that scares me is:  What the hell are we going to do when the
>little buggers hit the job market . . . .  :-)

Pray that they have learned to write portable and robust code before you
have to use one of their programs. :-)

That all said, I'm really not trying to flame the demo authors.  Poor
programming practices and non-portable code just get to me.  Maybe
there's a traumatic expereince involving poor programming in my past.  :-/

Enough o' my raving...

Dave Baggett
dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net