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From: mazlack@ernie.BERKELEY.EDU (Lawrence J. &)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: FLAME Re: Net.*SOURCES*.mac
Message-ID: <11052@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 19:44:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11052
Posted: Fri Nov 22 19:44:50 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Nov-85 06:17:56 EST
References: <6134@utzoo.UUCP> <96900019@uiucuxc>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mazlack@ernie.UUCP (Lawrence J. Mazlack)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <96900019@uiucuxc> bantz@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU writes:
>
>I don't understand the logic here.
>
>If every contribution is to be useful to all or even most users of UNIX,
>what's the point of having special interest groups at all?
>
>If contributions are suspect whenever they might possibly provide any economic
>benefit to the contributor, then fa.laser-lovers (because it has a lot of 

I think that you are proceding on a false assumption.  You seem to believe
that it is only non-Mac users who want sources instead of BinHex.  You are
wrong.  I do quite a lot of Lisa/Mac work, and except for utilities and
games, I do not want BinHex code.  In fact, I rarely look at SOURCES because
(a) it is so big and (b) most of it is not useful anyway (because it is in
BinHex).

The reasons for getting code in source form are:
(1) Bug correction
(2) Change in environment (memory, periphials, etc.)
(3) Improvements (efficiency, friendliness, capabilities)
(4) Different compiler - some compilers are better than others for the task
    at hand
(5) To use only some parts of it
(6) To learn how to do somethings (For example, multiple windows)

Assuming that a program, once written, cannot or should not be improved is
fantastically naive.  In the real, commercial world, it turns out that
most of the coding done on a program is done AFTER it has been released as
a product.

...Larry Mazlack