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From: mykes@3comvax.UUCP (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Aztec C, good, bad, HELP!
Message-ID: <503@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-May-86 14:25:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.503
Posted: Thu May 15 14:25:44 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 19-May-86 04:54:24 EDT
References: <276@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP> <1100@h-sc1.UUCP> <243@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Reply-To: mykes@3comvax.UUCP (Mike Schwartz)
Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
Lines: 32

Cutting down Aztec C is a joke.  How many programs do you see in a store that
even compare with it?  Let's see, there's only Lattice (C compilers).  No
comparison.  I use Aztec C practically as much as I use my Amiga, so I figure 
a couple hundred ($400 or whatever) is worth it.

I am thrilled with version 3.20 of the compiler, and can't say enough about
it.  Sure it has a few bugs, but the Amiga has some too.  But look at what they
both are:  Amiga=best computer available for < $2000 by far;  Aztec 'C' = best
compiler for Amiga by far (at any price, native to the Amiga).  

If you don't want to pay for the best, then go ahead and settle for less.  Face
the facts, we are in on the ground floor of a new machine, just as people were
at one time for the IBM PC.

Sure there are greps and all the other unix trash (my own terminology) in 
the public domain, but as a professional developer, I would rather not spend
my time porting these non-trivial, file system oriented programs.  Paying
an extra $100 saves me time worth much more than $100.  Why cry about it.

The $400 package also includes the SOURCE to the ENTIRE library, which is
somewhat disappointing to see 1000 source files, of which 750 are all 3
line assembler routines.  However, the flexability of being able to build
custom run-time libraries is well worth it.

As an aside, it really is a shame to compile thousands of little files to
make up a library, especially on floppy disk based computers.  You spend
more time loading the compiler and assembler from disk than you do 
compiling.  It is much more time efficient to balance the number and size
of different source files to take advantage of the fact that once the
compiler has been loaded, it may as well do a few more milliseconds of work.
You don't want to recompile everything all the time, either, so there must
be some middle ground that is reasonable (there always is).