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From: lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: BYTE issue of September 86 focuses on the 68000
Message-ID: <167@apple.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Sep-86 12:13:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: apple.167
Posted: Fri Sep 19 12:13:41 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 21:21:02 EDT
References: <3868@ut-ngp.UUCP> <3374@ism780c.UUCP> <15656@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <158@zen.BERKELEY.EDU> <173@sas.UUCP>
Reply-To: lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein)
Organization: Advanced Development Group, Apple Computer
Lines: 47
Xref: mnetor net.micro.mac:7125 net.micro.amiga:4766

In article <173@sas.UUCP> walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker) writes:
>The example cited in the  article shows a series of about 8 or 9 steps
>required on the Mac to resize a  window.  On the Amiga, it was one step -
>the system did all the resizing, and  just informed you about it.  The
>Amiga method is much better than the Mac  method on two counts - 1. it is
>less work for the programmer, and 2. it  encourages a more consistent user
>interface, since most people will use the  system-supplied way rather than
>go to all the trouble of doing it like the Mac.

Two points to make here.

(1) On the Mac there are high level tools that implement features like
window resizing automatically.  In MacApp, for example, the programmer
writes no code to resize windows.  MacApp also takes care of more
complicated things like printing, scrolling, and document opening/closing.  

MacApp also encourages a consistent user interface and improves programmer
productivity.  I think it goes further than the Amiga in both those areas,
simply because it takes a much higher level approach.

(I use MacApp as an example simply because I have been working on
implementing it; there are equivalent frameworks available for sale and as
shareware/public domain software.  In addition, once a programmer has
finished one Mac project s/he usually has implemented an application
framework that can use reused over and over again.)

(2) One thing that no one has mentioned yet is how does the Amiga system
software manages scroll bars.  The example in BYTE listed several steps on
the Mac side for moving and resizing scroll bars.  Since I don't know
anything about the Amiga, I would like to see a short description of how a
programmer specifies where the scroll bars belong in a window, and how much
space this specification requires.

The Mac architecture give the programmer the flexibility to have status
windows adjacent to the scroll bars (as in Microsoft Word and File,
Pagemaker, and MPW Shell).  I want to hear how the Amiga software would
handle a similar feature.

-- 
Larry Rosenstein

Object Specialist
Apple Computer

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