Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!manis
From: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: updates? right. (Alcyon & Developers)
Message-ID: <1410@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-May-87 11:50:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1410
Posted: Sat May 23 11:50:52 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 24-May-87 08:58:40 EDT
References: <870522123435.655800@RADC-MULTICS.ARPA>
Reply-To: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis)
Distribution: world
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science
Lines: 35

In article <870522123435.655800@RADC-MULTICS.ARPA> Peck@RADC-MULTICS.ARPA
(Rodney) writes:

>  The thing that really bothers me is the attitude...Don't use system 
>variables until we document them!!  You should bug us to document them. 

Without getting into yet another pointless discussion on the subject of
Atari's attitude, I must say that not using undocumented features is
essential to success in programming.  Just about every program I've ever
written has one or two undocumented things in it; either I couldn't get
them to work (and they weren't essential anyway), or they struck me as
things I would be likely to change in the next version.

Allan is not setting up laws as to what we can and can't do with our
machines; in telling you not to use something undocumented, he's advising
you that it may not work the same way in the next release. If you ignore his
advice, that's fine; but you may have egg on your face when your program
won't work on some future machine.

I won't argue about the quality of the developers' documentation (the Mark
Williams stuff is so good that I no longer feel a need for an Atari product
in this area); but it's a good idea to *heed* advice that some location or
operation is "RESERVED". Or would you prefer Atari never to improve their 
products? I can hear it now: "Damn you, Atari, for fixing the 40-folder bug.
Now my program doesn't work any more!".

-----
Vincent Manis                {seismo,uw-beaver}!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!manis
Dept. of Computer Science    manis@cs.ubc.cdn
Univ. of British Columbia    manis%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa  
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5      manis@ubc.csnet
(604) 228-6770 or 228-3061

"The difference between capitalism and communism is obvious: under capitalism,
 man exploits man, while under communism, it is exactly the opposite."