Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site k.cs.cmu.edu
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim
From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Ban the binaries!
Message-ID: <676@k.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 04:22:09 EST
Article-I.D.: k.676
Posted: Wed Nov 27 04:22:09 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 06:57:33 EST
References: <464@graffiti.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
Lines: 31

Hard as it may be for you to believe, Peter, many programs for the Mac are
not written in C at all.  For instance, MacIP was begun before there were
any decent C compilers available, so it's in Lisa Pascal.  (In fact, I still
don't know of a C compiler with a good Appletalk interface.)  Other Pascals
and something called Rascal are also popular.  Then within Pascal, you have
a number of different environments, some "vanilla" (or close), some strongly
object-oriented and therefore incompatible.  Then of course there are the
different toolbox interfaces and naming conventions in the various C
compilers, particularly with respect to strings and pointers to four-byte or
smaller structures, not to mention the totally incompatible in-line
assemblers.

In order to to make the different C compilers compatible, existing code
would have to stop working in most of them.  Show me a compiler developer
who would agree to a change like that and I'll show you a lunatic who'll be
out of business in less than a year.

I've said it before, but it didn't seem to take: the Mac is not UNIX, never
has been UNIX, and never will be UNIX.  If you approach it with the standard
"UNIX-like means good, un-UNIX-like means bad", then you will hate it.  But
this is an attitude that ignores the basic differences between an
expert-friendly, developer-oriented minicomputer (like a UNIX machine) and a
novice-friendly, user-oriented microcomputer (like the Mac).  I'm sick of
explaining it, because if you haven't gotten it by now, then you're not
trying and I'm wasting my breath.

UNIX, by the way, is a trademark of AT&T Bell Labs.
-=-
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot, CMU Center for Art and Technology
tim@k.cs.cmu.edu       | uucp: {seismo,decwrl,ucbvax,etc.}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim
CompuServe: 74176,1360 | CMU. Tomorrow's networking nightmares -- today!