Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!think!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!sdcsvax!jww
From: jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Broken compilers
Message-ID: <3146@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12-May-87 12:30:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.3146
Posted: Tue May 12 12:30:52 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 15-May-87 02:27:26 EDT
References: <949@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <746@apple.UUCP> <1953@husc6.UUCP>
Organization: Western Software Technology, Vista, CA
Lines: 29
Keywords: IMPORTANT WARNING LIGHTSPEED C

In article <1953@husc6.UUCP>, stew@endor.harvard.edu (Stew Rubenstein) writes:
> TO ALL CURRENT AND POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM DEVELOPERS: If it is
> important for developers to follow the guidelines, then it is
> important squared for development system runtimes to follow the rules.
> Otherwise, you will make many, many programs break.  

> Needless to say, I no longer plan to sell programs built with MegaMax
> or Lightspeed C.  I hope that the MPW runtimes follow the rules...

LSC is great fun and very quick for prototyping, but this points
up the advantange of MPW for final compilation of commercial products.

The event horizon for major system changes at Apple seems to be 6-18
months.  That is, if a major incompatible system software change
is planned, MPW programs will probably not break for at least that long.
Plus, now that Apple has compatibility tech notes (they didn't
when MacTerminal came out), I suspect most of their new software
conforms to those rules per management orders.  

Following the guidelines at the third-party companies isn't hard, and
I suspect most decent firms will do so.  As for code quality, a recent
benchmark (due in Byte next fall) showed that Lightspeed C and Aztec C
were comparable for a register version of the sieve.  Unofficially,
MPW C produced a comparable result, with less than a 2% variation for
all three.
-- 
	Joel West
	{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww	(ihnp4!gould9!joel if I ever fix news)
	jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu	if you must