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From: john13@garfield.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Amiga's Worst Enemy
Message-ID: <3644@garfield.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-May-87 15:41:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: garfield.3644
Posted: Wed May 13 15:41:37 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 13:38:25 EDT
References: <18006@sun.uucp> <857@sputnik.COM> <1640@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <119@l5comp.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: CS Dept., Memorial U. of Newfoundland, St. John's
Lines: 46
Keywords: Developers programmers comercial software
Xref: utgpu comp.sys.amiga:4495 comp.sys.ibm.pc:3544
Summary: opinion of "good software"

In article <119@l5comp.UUCP>, scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) writes:
>
>                                            I own both DeluxePaint and
> DeluxePaint II. I found DeluxePaint next to useless and DeluxePaint II is VERY
> prone to crashing on my system.                                              
...
>                                                                         But I
> can and WILL pay top dollar for top dollar programs. I've shelled out over
> $100 to MetaComCo for their toolkit and shell and I don't regret it for a
> second. 

The toolkit and shell from MetaComCo don't do anything you can't do just as
well or better for free. Both Matt Dillon's shell and ConMan appeal to me more
as CLI improvements than the MetaComCo shell, and the toolkit consists (if my
memory serves correctly) of a tiny fraction of a disk-full of programs,
including

- compress/uncompress type programs. There are more of these in the PD than you
  can shake a stick at.
- Alib, a PD program (I may have the name wrong)
- a browser/more type of thing, very limited in scope
- file encryption utility. I don't have one, but I believe there is at least
  1 on the Fish disks.
- aux-cli, a serial based CLI. I downloaded a PD program for this last night,
  and you can also do it with DTerm.
- pipe device, of which there is also a PD version

I'm sure there were more, but the overall usefulness of these programs didn't
strike me as greater than, say, Shell, Conman, Arc, compress/uncompress, Alib,
Blitz, DME, DTerm, Pipe:, and the PD aux device. And for most of these I can
get the source if I really want.

On the other hand, DPaint I & II I consider top-notch. I have only seen 1
demonstrated _bug_, the crash that occurs if you resize a square pen past the
top left corner where you began resizing. I have experienced crashes with 
DPaint II based on the copy-protection not liking the ram-disk, and the Amega
memory board glitching due to a poor fit against the side, but all of these
are easily avoided. There have been a couple of others unexplained, but all
most likely related to unforeseeable trashing of copper lists or such, of the
same sort as the VSprite scattering when you have your screen dragged over to
the left in Preferences. It also locked up once when lassoing a brush, because
I wanted to see how complex the polygon could be and just kept clicking without
finishing the lasso until something happened - I would never have any need for
a lasso of that complexity in order to create a picture.

John