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From: sho@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: what I want to see in future Apple computers
Message-ID: <5282@dirac.physics.purdue.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 91 21:27:00 GMT
Sender: news@dirac.physics.purdue.edu
Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept, W.Lafayette, IN
Lines: 95

I'd like to resurrect this topic again.  Sometimes, it seems as if a
month doesn't go by in which we don't have some discussion of what we
want in future systems.  However, I haven't had a chance to discuss
this since the advent of system 7, so I'm going to try to start
another discussion.

This discussion usually comes in two flavors.  Either you talk about
reasonable improvements, or you talk about pie-in-the-sky wacked out
ideas.  I'd like to talk about some of both.

Multitasking:

I used to think that cooperative multitasking was ok for the mac.
Now, I find it a pain in the ass.  

Recently, I've been writing small programs that communicate with each
other using AppleEvents and the PPC Toolbox.  I've found that it's one
thing to write one program, and another thing entirely to write four
programs which send signals back and forth to each other.  The way
things stand, I find myself pulling my hair out trying to keep
everything straight.  Preemptive multitasking would simplify things.
On a similar note, I'd love to see protected memory.  When a program
crashes, I want an alert that says, "core dump."  I don't want the
entire machine to die.


Toolbox:

Oh, god, the Toolbox has gotten complicated.  I want to see a complete
rewrite.  (but then again, don't we all...)  Using a class library is
helpful, but it still doesn't feel right.  I want a new toolbox
written for a real object oriented language.  Instead of installing a
wdef proc, we should be able to subclass the window class and override
the draw method.  

Instead of sending an AppleEvent to another program, I should be able
to send it messages using this object oriented language.  Suppose C++
had a ->> operator, which was more like a SmallTalk message.  Then, I
could do something like this:

	Application	otherProg;

	otherProg = new Application('Spel', true);
	err = otherProg->err;

	if(!err)  err = otherProg->>OpenFile(file);
	if(!err)  err = otherProg->>SpellCheck();

The constructor would either connect to the existing program or launch
it if the process doesn't exist.  If the program had no SpellCheck()
method, the exception handler would deal with it.

There's been a little discussion of document based interfaces.
Instead of copying and pasting between applications, you might choose
"New Document" from the Finder.  You run applications to place
sections of text, graphics, what have you, all over the document.  All
sections are live, and opening the document opens all the applications
needed to edit the document.  I like this idea, and I think it fits in
well with the above.  Not *all* programs would run this way, (imagine
your C compiler) but there is some sort of interface here which I'm
just not smart enough to figure out.  


Hardware:

I think it's about time that the mac had more graphics horsepower.
I'd like to see a system where you didn't have to work around
Quickdraw to write a video game.  I also want eighty gazillion meg of
ram with eleventy-four RISC chips running at 100 Mega-GigaHertz.
Really, though, I'd like to see Apple come out with a new line by 1994
with a completely new interface, new, easy-to-program Toolbox, and
enough horsepower to make people drool.  It's not just a matter of
calculating spreadsheets faster.  Faster hardware would allow us much
more luxury in designing a slick interface.  And I think that a
machine like the mac which depends so much on graphics has no business
being slower than a Nintendo or what have you.

By 1994, the mac will be 10 years old.  The Classic is only marginally
faster than the original mac.  People will point out that the Classic
sells because there is a market for it.  I have no argument there.  It
is a great machine for some people.  I'm just saying that Apple can't
expect to stay alive by adding kluge upon kluge to the Mac Toolbox for
the rest of time.  I'd like to see a new product introduced in the
$5000 price range which blows your mind in the same way that the
original mac did.  And as long as they're going to do that, I want
them to do it in such a way that it allows us programmers to write
nifty programs with the least amount of effort.

I may not have said anything that hasn't been said before.  However,
I'd like to hear other people's views on the future of the mac, and
I'd also like to hear any gossip that's floating around.

-Sho
-- 
sho@physics.purdue.edu <<-- we all have our pipe dreams...