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From: mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Source to OS (Was Re: Information on Amiga Technical Reference Ser
Message-ID: <22497@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 17 Jun 91 13:29:27 GMT
References: <3034@public.BTR.COM> <91164.020625DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu> <22451@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Reply-To: mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 45

In article <22451@cbmvax.commodore.com> ken@cbmvax.commodore.com (Ken Farinsky - CATS) writes:
>>In article <3034@public.BTR.COM>, valentin@btr.BTR.COM says:
>>>I recommend to everybody to seek out Markus Wandel's disassembly of the Exec
>>>if they wish to understand the inner workings of the OS.
>>
>>I second this recommendation!
>>-- Dan Babcock
>
>I would like to recommend that you ignore any disassembly of the ROM,
>throw away your hardware manuals and treat the OS as a black box.
>I know this is not possible in some cases, but doing so will provide
>maximum compatibility with future versions of the OS.  If you rely
>on ANY undocumented details, then you make it much harder for
>Commodore to upgrade the OS.
>
>Please follow the documentation.  Don't assume what unused bits do.
>Don't test values to see what happens.  If you have a problem which has
>no documented solution, ask!  If you find a bug in the RKMs, report it.
>--
>Ken Farinsky - CATS - Commodore Business Machines

What he said, and then some!  We spent the last 6 months doing mainly
compatibility work, finding out what strange and twisted code is out
there and assuming things about the OS.  Over all, I think maybe a year
of development effort went into keeping programs working.  Now, I am
not saying it was not good for the OS.  We have made major steps forward,
but it does make life rather difficult.  If you wish to see the OS grow,
then use the documentation.  If the documentation is not enough, ask.

If you can not program the system from the documentation and any clarification
given by CATS or Engineering, then the source code would be of no help.
It is rather foolish to think that the source would be a better way to
understand what a function does.  Many (most) times, the amount of time
it would talk (and skill) to understand all of the aspects of a piece of
code is many orders of magnitude more than just reading the documenation.

			-- Mike

/----------------------------------------------------------------------\
|      /// Michael Sinz  -  Amiga Software Engineer                    |
|     ///                   Operating System Development Group         |
|    ///   BIX:  msinz      UUNET:  rutgers!cbmvax!mks                 |
|\\\///    Programming is like sex:                                    |
| \XX/     One mistake and you have to support it for life.            |
\----------------------------------------------------------------------/