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From: gat@inuxd.UUCP (G Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari
Subject: Re: ACTION! vs. C/65
Message-ID: <834@inuxd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Jan-86 08:50:19 EST
Article-I.D.: inuxd.834
Posted: Fri Jan  3 08:50:19 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jan-86 05:04:59 EST
References: <8601021929.AA29703@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
Lines: 30

> Can anyone discuss the relative merits or otherwise of OSS's ACTION! cartridge
> vs. their C/65 compiler.  Which would you recommend I purchase?  I know that 
> C/65 requires MAC/65, but that's ok.  I'm more interested in things like
> ease of programming in one lang vs. the other, development environment
> provided, known bugs, speed, etc.  I'm leaning toward C/65 mainly because
> learning C at least would be of use with other machines, whereas ACTION!
> is presumably of no use outside 8-bit Atariland.  I have an Atari 800.
> 
There has been considerable recent discussion of the merits of ACTION!
To summarize, buy ACTION! if you have any real interest in programming
the Atari, otherwise stick with Atari Basic.

Mild Flame!  Before I encountered ACTION! I was able to use a friend's
system who had the MAC/65 and C/65 conglomeration.  I was appalled by
the list of C constructs not supported by C/65, e.g. "for statements,
do-while statements, switch statement," and all of the more exotic C
constructs.  That was a bad start, but I found it to be quirky as
well, e.g. keywords had to be in UPPER CASE to be recognized.
Finally, the bother of shifting between editors, compiler, assembler
to get an executable was a real pain (this is one of the *main
advantages* of ACTION! -- it is easy to do this with ACTION!).

I encourage you to learn C, but I have yet to find a C in the Atari
800 world where you will learn anything very useful except frustration
tolerance.

Glen A. Taylor
AT&T  (Consumer Products Division)
Indianapolis, IN   
(317) 845-3709   inuxd!gat