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From: pes@bath63.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: new moderated newsgroup(s) for Atari ST software distrbution
Message-ID: <797@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 24-Feb-87 05:42:37 EST
Article-I.D.: bath63.797
Posted: Tue Feb 24 05:42:37 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Feb-87 22:24:17 EST
References: <882@imagen.UUCP> <1073@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <1271@husc6.UUCP> <575@viper.UUCP>
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
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Keywords: newsgroup,atari,st
Xref: utgpu news.groups:432 comp.sys.atari.st:1730


Ah.  My preferred order of preference is:

  1) Source and binary
  2) Source only
  3) Binary only

There are several reasons for preferring source over binary.  To answer the
earlier objection first, I find that if the source is not in one of 'my'
languages (C or assembler) I can usually manage a conversion.  The advantages
of source are several.  First, I can see what the thing is really doing --
it does make me a bit uneasy trusting my system to a wodge of object that
I know nothing about.  Second, if there are problems, I can probably 'fix'
them; or, if I want something similar but a bit different, I can bash them
about.  And finally (a personal preference, based on the way I relate to
my machine) even if the program is not itself 'interesting' to me, I can
probably learn a bit more about how the machine (or the world) works by
looking through well-written source code.