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From: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (Michael Ross)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Portability of Mac Source
Message-ID: <330@mmm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 12:56:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mmm.330
Posted: Fri Nov 22 12:56:19 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Nov-85 04:26:02 EST
References: <6679@boring.UUCP> <25500120@ISM780B.UUCP> <452@graffiti.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR)
Organization: 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.
Lines: 23
Summary: 

>
>Unportable, yes... by definition. Mac-specific? No longer. See net.micro.amiga
>and net.micro.atari for more info. It is no longer acceptable to assume that
>windows==macintosh (actually it never was, but you slobs got away with it).
>-- 
>Name: Peter da Silva

Slobs ... *moi*?  Sorry, but it's not just the fact that the system uses
windows - it's also the way they're used. There are over 400 (aren't there?)
toolbox routines that do all that stuff for you, so your code ends up looking
like a lot of calls to the toolbox with some (or whatever language) thrown
in. Ahh, you say, then why not isolate the parts that are mac-specific and
provide a high level interface that mimics the mac? Well that's a good
question, but unfortunately the answer is best understood by people
who have actually programmed the mac. The use of the toolbox is integral to
all parts of a mac program. The workings of the toolbox reflect a philosophy
that I would doubt is duplicated in either the Amiga or ST (not because
it's a bad philosophy, but simply because the extremely complex problems
that are tackled by the toolbox can be solved in any number of ways, and
I would be surprised if three or more independent development teams would
have solve those problems in the same way).

			-MKR