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From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Intuition's "dont mess with these" fields...
Message-ID: <305@gethen.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Nov-87 06:36:01 EST
Article-I.D.: gethen.305
Posted: Sat Nov  7 06:36:01 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Nov-87 06:29:47 EST
References: <1961@amiga.amiga.UUCP> <1825@cadovax.UUCP> <2631@cbmvax.UUCP> <1831@cadovax.UUCP> <663@mitsumi.UUCP> <1846@cadovax.UUCP>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 54
Keywords: Intuition verboten nopokenzefields

In article <1846@cadovax.UUCP> keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) writes:
>
>Once a product exists that supports a feature that was produced by a hack,
>it becomes the status-quo, as the competition and any compatible programs
>then MUST support these same features to survive.  This is expected by
>the CUSTOMERs, and we all know "The customer is always right".

Wrong.  Once a program exists that supports a feature produced by a hack,
that program is in deadly danger of breaking at the next OS release, as
had been found out, sadly, by many vendors of Apple ][ software, Mac
software, Atari software, IBM software, and endlessly on.  The culprits
include some of the biggest names around, not just hackers.

> 4.  Most end-user customers have no understanding of any technical
>     difficulties caused by any of these issues (which are all self-
>     imposed software limitations) and will expect such features.

Wrong.  End users do not understand these limitations, and quickly learn
to adapt to the limitations as they use the software.

>Well, I suppose I could just have told everyone that it's an Intuition
>"bug" that when you go to 364x220 (or whatever) that you're still stuck
>with a 320x200 mouse area.  But that wouldn't be very supportive of my
>customer, me passing the buck like that now would it?

No, but it would be a lot more honest.  Better yet, don't talk in terms
of Intuition "bugs" to the customer at all.  Just tell her that the
mouse is limited to the 320x200 area, and provide other means of doing
what you mean to do.  Use your imagination, rather than deriding CA
simply because they don't agree with YOUR vision.

>When CBM is not responsive to the demands of the customer, they lose a
>lot of currency with the customers.

And when Keith Doyle is not responsive to the demands of the customer,
by providing software which will break as soon as a new OS release comes
out, he loses even more.  They won't think it's Commodore's fault, they'll
think it's YOUR'S.

>What say the rest of you, gang?  Should I be postponing the release of
>such a product till 1.3?  Till I can port to the Mac II?  Should I just
>tell everyone "Hey, I had a great idea for this fantastic product on the
>Amiga, was 2 weeks to release on the product, but then I found out it 
>can't be done on that machine" ?

How about figuring a way to do whatever it is that you want to do within
the limitations of the system as it really is, rather than as you want
it to be?  Sure, that might not be as slick as you originally thought,
but it will have the advantage of working, now and forever.

-- 
----------------
Michael J. Farren      "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
unisoft!gethen!farren   that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa             Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"