Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!hamlet!hallett
From: hallett@hamlet.steinmetz (Jeff A. Hallett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: LightSpeed C gripes
Keywords: LightSpeed C no good, Mac 2, Gnu Chess
Message-ID: <9223@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jan 88 15:55:22 GMT
References: <10928@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Sender: news@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: desdemona!hallett@steinmetz.UUCP (Jeffrey A. Hallett)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 69

In article <10928@duke.cs.duke.edu> gleicher@duke.cs.duke.edu (Michael Gleicher) writes:
>I recently purchased LightSpeed C (2.11, upgraded to 2.15 from over the
>net upgrades), and I must say it is one of the poorest products that I
>have seen for a computer.
>>
>2) The editor sucks and you're stuck with it.
>	The editor is so bad it isn't worth mentioning. Little things
>	like a key to go to the end of a line, clear to end of line.
>	When writing code, I need my hands for typing, not to do everything
>	with the mouse.

Granted, this is a limitation.  I've never tried it, but I would think
that importing a TEXT file would be standard.

>
>3) The system is extremely limited by memory constraints.
>	If I wanted to be limited to small code/data segments I'd have
>	saved $3000 dollars and bought a 386 PC. But I want to be able to
>	run Big programs on my Mac 2. I don't want to see Code Segment
>	too large, although this is bearable considering the Mac loader.
>	What isn't acceptable is seeing "Data Segment too Big".
>

I guess this is/was a limitation of the Mac itself for a while.  To
the best of my knowledge, it has been removed, so LSC should remove it
as well in the next real release.

>4) The system doesn't really handle Multi-Finder.
>	Under multifinder, I keep getting "Out Of Memory" when I try to
>	compile programs (the program is about 2800 lines long in one
>	file). Big programs won't run either.

Not surprising considering the amount of overhead involved.  You
should get more memory for your machine.  Again, I don't feel that
this is LSC's fault; considering all that it does, it will need lots
of memory.  Remember, it compiles really quickly.

>
>6) I'm not sure how robust the compiler is.
>	The compiler seems to choke on some simple syntax things.
>	for example:
>		unsigned Book[][50];	doesn't work 
>			or
>		extern unsigned Book[][50];
>		Book = (void *) malloc(...)	gives a bizzare error

This isn't a problem considering the extremely non-standard C you are
using here.   First off, when you declare an array, you must define
the subscripts in order.  My Sun C compiler gives at least a warning
on the extern one and an error on the first one.  Also, the statement
(void *)malloc(...) is also completely wrong.  Why would you want to
declare space and return a pointer to nothing?  If you want a variable
array, you should use:

        unsigned **Book;
        Book = (unsigned **)malloc(...);

>


BTW, it is a great idea to port GnuChess to the Mac. It will be a
really neato achievment.  The best of luck to you.

Jeffrey A. Hallett                     | ARPA: hallett@ge-crd.arpa   
Software Technology Program    	       | UUCP: desdemona!hallett@steinmetz.uucp
GE Corporate Research and Development  | (518) 387-5654
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|                            Credo Quia Absurdum Est                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+