Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Amiga Transactor Message-ID: <1427@sugar.UUCP> Date: 30 Jan 88 06:59:24 GMT Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX Lines: 88 Well, I just picked up the latest copy of Amiga Transactor. Looks great. I might just subscribe to this one (even at $70/6 issues). A few things, though... * I had been under the impression that it was going to come in a plastic bag with the disks included, as well as naked. For extra bucks, of course. I'm disappointed that it wasn't... that's what you really need to pull in those newsstand sales. Of course the salesman I spoke to could have been suffering from a recto- cranial inversion. Such things have been known to happen. But this guy at least tries to keep up with the real world. * The fake amiga title bars are just plain ugly. Well, Amiga title bars are a bit of an esthetic disaster in the first place, but at least they could have pixelised them to make them look better. The scroll bar for the page number was a nice touch. A bit of pixelisation would have helped there, too. The title on each page could be the title of the section. Maybe someone could do a "current directory title bar hack" for the Amiga Transactor :->. * The title on the contents is "Transactor for the Amiga/The Magazine for Amiga Programmers". A much nicer title (sort of remaniscent of Dr Dobbs new look). How about it? On to the meat... * AbsExecBase and Amiga Dispatches (perhaps it could be called PutMsg for max cuteness?)... pretty good. Meaty. Less filler. * Access (cute title? IDCMP?) Good. I'm not too interested in the particular programs covered, but I can see their place. * The ViewPort. I really want to flame Larry Phillips to death. A total attack on 'C'. Perhaps he should have stopped typing after his fit of moderation was over. * Perry's article was amusing, if a little low in substance. He could have repeated "Hacking on the Amiga cannot be done from an IBM PC." a few more times, though. * Matt Dillon's article in accessing DOS via packets is going into my library. * The next article is on the SCA virus. A little out of date. * Then we come to another "Hacker Reminiscence". If they were going to take something out to cut 100 pages down to 80, they could have saved 4 pages here. * "Hex 13 common amiga arrors and how to avoid them." A lot has been mentioned before, but it doesn't hurt to mention most of these again. And again... * "Porting from UNIX to the Amiga." Good, but one thing you should always do is try to make software that runs in the CLI window if started from the CLI, and in its own window if started from the workbench. Besides, don't we have enough calculators with fake buttons already? I ought to stick an RPN calculator in my clock... * Bob Peck's article on memory allocations and lists looks good. Haven't read it yet, but it skims well. * "In the beginning was CAOS." If this article doesn't make you want to fly your workbench at half mast, you have no poetry in your soul. * "A programmer's Tour of arp.library." I'll have to take another look at arp.library. One thing I noticed is that you still can't set up a template like: "DELETE ...,ALL/S,Q=QUIET/S:", with the ellipses standing for an indeterminate number of arguments. * Didn't read the machine language article. If I wanted to program in machine language I'd have stuck with an Atari ST. * I'll get around to the font article. Later. Promise. * "Warrior Cycles". I want to scream. This sort of program has been on my to-do list for months (though I was gonna make it more like CROBOTS). I guess I should think about adding a "Warrior Cycles" port to "Tracers". * Reviews... I'll look at Power Windows again. Promise. Yeh. I definitely want to subscribe. Maybe after the next issue comes out, if they keep up the quality. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.