Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!amdahl!drivax!braun
From: braun@drivax.UUCP (Kral)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: GEMDOS History
Message-ID: <3047@drivax.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 88 00:00:26 GMT
References: <2697@dadla.TEK.COM> <1988Jan24.012514.26587@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <3005@drivax.UUCP> <7340@apple.UUCP> <3046@drivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: braun@drivax.UUCP (Kral)
Organization: Digital Research, Inc.
Lines: 34

In article <3046@drivax.UUCP> alexande@drivax.UUCP (Mark Alexander) writes:
>
>Landon Dyer's summary is accurate in the broad sense, although some
>of the unimportant details weren't quite right.
>

As one of the last people to work on this project (with one exception), I can
only add my support to most of the comments from Atari and DRI sources,
particularly Landon's quote from Star Wars.  If Atari has only fixed a few bugs
in that system, then they are to be commended from it.  As Mr. Pratt probably 
knows all too well, it is far to easy to swap new bugs for old ones without
re-writting major chunks.

Mark sums up the "motivation" behind the results: mostly marketing types
working out deals with unrealistic schedules behind them.

Bruce's comments on the origin, while simplistic, are not too far off base.  If
generalized, they apply to much of the system that someone else (sorry, forgot
the name) was complaining about (eg, Alcyon came, er, for next to nothing, and
was "already complete").

As most programmers know, if you do a bad (read: hurried) job the first time,
it will most likely take longer and longer to get seemingly small bugs fixed.

My sympathies go out to Mr. Pratt.

DISCLAIMER: complaints and congratulations come from me, not DRI.


-- 
kral						[THERE ARE NO ORDINARY MOMENTS]
408/647-6112					...{ism780|amdahl}!drivax!braun
           [You learn by what you do, Not by what you *don't* do]
DISCLAIMER: If DRI knew I was saying this stuff, they would shut me d~-~oxx