Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!mintaka!olivea!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!theory.TC.Cornell.EDU!riley From: riley@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Daniel S. Riley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Information on Amiga Technical Reference Seri Message-ID: <1991Jun19.171539.5525@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: 19 Jun 91 17:15:39 GMT References: <22455@cbmvax.commodore.com> Sender: news@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu Organization: Cornell Theory Center Lines: 33 Nntp-Posting-Host: theory.tc.cornell.edu In article , vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) writes: >Try to decide now, you just said that the OS wasn't ugly. Now you're >telling us the opposite. Do you mean that the OS relies on side >effects? Have you knowingly designed in side-effects? Hope you're all >walking encyclopedias, you must have some memory! Unless you >specifically documented the things as side-effects of course. But then >it wouldn't hurt anyone, devlopers *can* read comments if they *can* >read the code. A ridiculous argument. Peter says that OS routines may have side effects which developers should not depend on, and you somehow conclude that the OS depends on these side effects. Entirely specious... > BTW, are you aware that the September/October '90 Amiga Mail master >index for Amiga documentation listed 21 sources for Amiga technical >documentation (almost all originating from Commodore). What is this? >Distributed documentation? To "do the right thing" usually requires >being familiar with all of these. My hat is off to Ken Farinsky of >CATS for writing the x-ref, though. Guess what--even if you had the source, you *still* need all that documentation. The source only tells you what the implemented behavior is; you need the documentation to tell you what the defined behavior is. Programming to the implemented behavior without referring to the defined behavior of the OS is exactly why Commodore doesn't want to release the source. -- -Dan Riley (riley@theory.tc.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley) -Wilson Lab, Cornell University