Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!know!newmedia!jim
From: jim@newmedia.UUCP (Jim Beveridge)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: Why even use Windows x.xx?
Message-ID: <453@newmedia.UUCP>
Date: 22 Apr 91 23:06:25 GMT
References: <10960@uwm.edu> <1077@hrshcx.csd.harris.com> <6640@gssc.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: New Media Graphics, Billerica, MA
Lines: 43

In article <6640@gssc.UUCP>, timr@gssc.UUCP (Tim Roberts) writes:
> In article <1991Apr12.142258.15226@cbnewsj.att.com> jwi@cbnewsj.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ) writes:
> GUIs present more benefits to the application developer than to the end user.
> The application developer can simply FORGET about supporting 2,427 different
> graphic display devices, 1,912 different printer devices, 327 different 
> plotters and 9 different mouse interfaces.  Your application under Windows
> automatically runs on any combination of devices supported by Windows, at
> whatever resolutions the device drivers support.  That is a BIG improvement
> is marketability and productivity for the application developer.
> 

It has been shown that the average Mac user masters 7 applications.
The average IBM user masters 3.  Somehow I am inclined to believe
that the reason ISN'T because all IBM users are stupid.  Rather, it
is because the Mac GUI provided a much more consistent interface than
the free-for-all found in DOS.  (Before Windows)  I don't have to
remember 12 ways to get help, or to delete a line, a cut and paste.

Lest you haven't written a Windows app (I have), they are *tough*.  I
would say that writing a windowing app for the Mac or PC is substantially
more difficult than writing the same app for DOS.  Try writing a simple
app, like "Hello World".  It will come out at least a couple pages long.
Memory management alone is a horror show.

Most developers would ignore windowing envioronments if they could.
Note Lotus and Ashton Tate, who took years to come out with a windowing
version of their software.  They obviously didn't see this great
developer's advantage.

The developer gains the device independence at the expense of a lot
of other difficulties.  A fairly large application I wrote worked under
VMS, Unix and MS-DOS just fine.  MS-Windows broke it _badly_.  I
ended up rewriting substantial hunks of it.  So where does that leave
me with portability??  I lose big.

I don't disagree about the advantages of having device independence.
It is probably the biggest advantage that Windows offers.  But so
many other things are brain damaged that it makes development a
_real_ pain.

		Jim

OH NO NOT ANOTHER GUI FLAME WAR PLEASE   N O O o o . .