Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!pyramid!gould9!joel From: joel@gould9.UUCP (Joel West) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: Apple's response to 10 Challenges Message-ID: <595@gould9.UUCP> Date: Wed, 4-Jun-86 22:09:08 EDT Article-I.D.: gould9.595 Posted: Wed Jun 4 22:09:08 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jun-86 04:48:42 EDT References: <21100044@orstcs.UUCP> <569@gould9.UUCP> <13908@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <764@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: CACI, Inc. -- La Jolla, Calif. Lines: 133 Summary: the whole truth In article <764@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, srm@ucbiris.berkeley.edu (Richard Mateosian) writes: > >>Mr. Myers is having fun, but I really don't think that his smart-ass > >>paraphrasing contributes anything. > > Lighten up, guys. Sorry, but as a some-time journalist, I find I have an unusual pre- occupation with facts. This is not necessarily something that hackers, salesmen, or publicists seem to be too concerned with. So, in the interest of accuracy, I have enclosed Larry Rosenstein's actual responses. I know this is somewhat dated (he and I took successive vacations, contributing to the delays) but I think many out there would like to see the actual answers, unedited. Date: Tue, 27 May 86 12:39:59 pdt From: pyramid!voder!apple!lsr (Larry Rosenstein) To: gould9!joel@pyramid.UUCP Subject: Re: Apple's response to 10 Challenges Thanks for your comments on Usenet. ... I am enclosing my original response to Mr. Myers; feel free to post it to net.micro.mac. **** Begin Original Reply **** >From lsr Fri Jun 20 14:31:09 1986 Received: by apple.csnet (4.12/5.1.Apple) id AA02761; Wed, 7 May 86 15:03:19 pdt Date: Wed, 7 May 86 15:03:19 pdt From: lsr (Larry Rosenstein) Posted-Date: Wed, 7 May 86 15:03:19 pdt Message-Id: <8605072203.AA02761@apple.csnet> To: nathan%oregon-state@CSNET-RELAY Subject: Re: Ten Challenges (long) Organization: Advanced Development Group, Apple Computer Status: RO I liked your suggestions. Here are my comments on them. In article <21100039@orstcs.UUCP> you write: >Myers Challenge #1: (searching in editors) This is a good idea. The Macintosh development system we are working on has a nice implementation of regular expressions. They use special Mac characters for the meta-characters, rather than graphical diagrams, however. The special characters avoid some qutoing problems, but make search expressions non-portable. >Myers Challenge #2: (pipes) The development system also supports a pipeline syntax. It can't execute the individual programs concurrently, but handles the problem of creating a temporary file and running the tools in sequence. (It also allows you to send the output of a tool to a windows.) In fact the development system borrows a lot of concepts from UNIX, and makes it very easy to write these small tools. >Myers Challenge #3: (RAM disks) A good idea. I haven't seen anything that does this yet. >Myers Challenge #4: (2 button mouse) I disagree with this. If you look at the use of the second button on the Atari and Amiga you will see that it is inconsistent and hard to remember. I am very glad that we have 1 button on the Mac. >Myers Challenge #5: (Copy DA) This is a good idea. It turns out that the development system provided all the functions of the Finder with a command line interface, so you never have to use the Finder while using the development system. >Myers Challenge #6: (GEM menus) I disagree with this one also. I tried GEM and was always pulling down a menu by accident. Holding the mouse button down is not very fatiguing and is better than constantly making little slips that break your train of thought and require some action to reverse. It would be easy to do this on the Mac, however. >Myers Challenge #7: (ResEdit) ResEdit is huge precisely because it is expandable. It has custom editors for a few resoruce types and templates for many others. It is exactly written in the way you suggest; a core program with pluggable editor modules (themselves resources). Constructing templates is very easy. Writing a powerful graphical editor is more difficult, but is possible. We will publish the specs for this when they are finalized. >Myers Challenge #8: (uniform device inteface) This is a good idea. As I said the development system does some of this by allowing you to redirect input and output. We have a common language for talking to devices, and that is the driver calls. I am not sure if the general model would be useful in all cases, however. I'm sure that Quickdraw would be slower and harder to use if it went through driver calls. Also, it would be difficult to fit all the Appletalk protocols into the same model as the serial port. >Myers Challenge #9: (document standard) This is a very good idea. I'm sure that is such a standard emerges, Apple will be among the first to embrace it. >Myers Challenge #10: (more challenges) I agree with this very much. We won't be able to keep the Mac growing without people constantly breaking new ground. Larry Rosenstein Object Specialist Apple Computer UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr CSNET: lsr@Apple.CSNET -- Joel West (619) 457-9681 CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA 92037 {cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA