Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!ucrmath!clemente!rhyde From: rhyde@clemente.ucr.edu (randy hyde) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: Choosing a language (ML vs HLL) Message-ID: <14159@ucrmath.ucr.edu> Date: 3 May 91 17:26:51 GMT References: <9105010011.AA10540@apple.com> <14106@ucrmath.ucr.edu> <16040@smoke.brl.mil> Sender: news@ucrmath.ucr.edu Reply-To: rhyde@clemente.ucr.edu (randy hyde) Lines: 44 >> re: all you need is alias to do "ls" instead of "cat" How much do you use UNIX? Probably less than I do! ls and cat do not produce the same output. If you've got a shell script which pipes the output of ls to some other program (like awk) it most certainly will not work if your ls produces different output than UNIX's ls. My comment was that most GS/APW or ORCA users don't need these fancy scripts (since the GS doesn't support multiprogramming, hence effectively eliminating the possibility of many UNIX scripts). I believe you've gotten reasonable performance out of programs written in C on your GS. Like my post stated, people have gotten reasonable performance out of Applesoft BASIC on a 1mhz Apple II for many years. If you're the only person using said software, or it has no competition, people can complain but it won't do 'em any good. OTOH, if your program is written in C and it has to compete against a product written in assembly, you may be in a bit of trouble. re: 80386 should be expected to run faster than a 65816. Exactly the point I was making. That's why people don't develop software for the GS. It`s easier, especially for mediocre (nee average) programmers to write in C rather than in assembly. If their products don't work well on the GS, no sweat, they sell 'em on other platforms and forget the GS. ORCA's libraries are fine if you're writing your software for the GS from scratch. I still argue that porting software from other platforms demonstrates some holes in the ORCA library. I could care less about AT&T licensing costs. It's Byteworks problem to provide decent libraries. Because they didn't, few people can port their PC applications (indeed, BW should go beyond the standard "UNIX" libraries and supply the superset provided by most PC C compiler vendors). If you think you're so good, here's a challenge, start with a PC or Mac-based version of FLEX and BISON and port them to the GS (Yes, this has been done, the results I've seen [due to segment limitations on the GS] is not very pretty). I would like to ask the TEX porting team, "How's it going?" If porting software to the GS was so easy, why don't simple recompilations work? BTW, I'm not putting down the efforts of those who are porting software to the GS, I have considerable praise to heap on them; I'm just say that it's not as easy as on other platforms and the result isn't as good as on other platforms.