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From: navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: YOU PEOPLE HAD BETTER GET WIT THE PROGRAM!! (Was: Re: Commodore Business Machines)
Message-ID: <14259@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 25 Jun 91 05:55:25 GMT
References: <1991Jun24.131045.4403@news.iastate.edu> <1991Jun24.150701.1686@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <14248@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1991Jun24.230638.7865@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU
Lines: 90

Okay, I missed something.  Maybe you can help clear it up?

In article <1991Jun24.230638.7865@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
>In article <14248@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes:
>>In article <1991Jun24.150701.1686@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes:
>>>	2) How is the Amiga clipboard inferior? You haven't
>>>presented that. You simply said it was unsupported and that is
>>>why it sucks. That proves nothing. Try proving something.
>>>	-- Ethan
>>
>>Of course it does, Ethan.  Look, the clipboard exists mainly for people
>>actually INTERESTED in providing a reasonable user interface.  If it isn't
>>used, it is definitely inferior to one that is.  Don't you think?
>
>  No, the design isn't inferior, it's the implementation that is.

Okay, let's review that atrocious mess ;)

Ethan says to -MB- "You simply said it was unsupported and that is why it
sucks."  He then claims that this proves nothing.

I claim that an unsupported clipboard sucks.

You seem to get hung up with this design/implementation thing.  Seems to
me that's irrelevant.  I still claim an unsupported clipboard sucks.

>>Take a pill, dude, our OS doesn't even have Paste(), Copy() or Cut()
>>routines -- sure the equivalents may only be twenty lines of code, but it's
>>sixty lines of code that isn't in the OS.
>
>   Sheesh, what a nitpick. It takes about 12 lines of code to do a 
>Cut() to the clipboard. If a developer is so lazy that he can't
...
>EVERYTHING in the OS. Hell, they may as well incorperate Microsoft
>Word into the OS with a single function cal{, void Word(char *path);

>Just so you know, 2.0's iffparse.library includes 2 calls,
>OpenClipBoard and CloseClipBoard which aid the programmer who is too lazy
>to set up an IORequest.

I realize that, I know both of the authors....  These things didn't
exist six years ago when the clipboard did.  It was more than 12 lines
there, after all you had to wrap it up in IFF.  In addition, older
versions of the clipboard lost memory on every call -- not what you
would call a robust design, either....

Taking your argument to an extreme, I could argue that none of this
Read(), Write(), Open(), DeleteFile() nonsense was necessary, we'd
just all use IORequests.  I don't think you're arguing for that?

Microsoft Word shouldn't be in ROM, text objects should, however.  It
is a distinct advantage -- having programmed systems with them and without
them.  As long as they aren't quite as crazy as Xt text objects, that
is ;)

>  So we have concluded
>1) The Amiga clipboard.device is totally open in design and supports
>the same amount of data that the Mac's does. (contrary to
>Marc's uninformed statement that it supports ASCII only)

Yes.  I really think that thread died, no?  Anyway...

>2) The clipboard.device never took off because Amiga developers choose
>not to support the clipboard (and some of them don't even support the
>Amiga OS, e.g. bypass it and go to the hardware, etc) There is nothing
>Commodore can do about this, the users must demand an end to this 

Bull.  Amiga developers didn't use it because it was buggy.  So was the
initial OS, for that matter.

Commodore has a responsibility to support it's developers.  If we say
(as we have been) that providing a clipboard.library with Paste(),
Copy() Cut() calls would induce us to use the clipboard, Cmdre ought
to provide us with (at least) an amiga.lib which had these calls.  Is
that *really* too much to ask for?  As I recall, some sort of source
was in Amiga Mail, I'd have to dig back and verify, though...

In addition, CMdre has taken the first step and published a Style Book.

>  When you talk about the Amiga's clipboard, you must distinguish between
>the clipboard _itself_ and how developers choose to use it.

To the man on the street, it makes no difference.  To the consumer, it
makes no difference.  When we talk about a consumer product, I'm
afraid that's the bottom line, as they say.


David Navas                                   navas@cory.berkeley.edu
	2.0 :: "You can't have your cake and eat it too."
Also try c186br@holden, c260-ay@ara and c184-ap@torus