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From: mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: A/UX window systems, Mac tool...( Hum Interface)
Message-ID: <2956@whutt.UUCP>
Date: 18 Mar 88 16:16:54 GMT
References: <1174@cpocd2.UUCP> <6986@drutx.ATT.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 48
Summary: is so/is not/is so/is not (come on guys!)

In article <6986@drutx.ATT.COM>, clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) writes:
> 
> In any Mac program, GetNextEvent () _is_always_called at the appropriate
> interval.  Since the beginning of Mac history, and presumably forevermore.
> 
> In your own words, "NO SPECIAL CODING IS NEEDED.  Most programs multitask 
> AUTOMATICALLY without any...".

Much of this argumentation on either side is truly futile.  Valid points get
made on both sides and are lost in a sea of invective.  Multi-finder is a
pretty good job of what it is trying to do -- including compatibility with
Switcher so that there ARE existing programs that can gracefully cooperate
for effective end-user multitasking.  Good job, Apple.

BUT

I can almost never use Multi-finder (on a 2 Meg MacII) because the stuff I
have tends to be either stupid or memory hogs.  I like having desk accessories
stick around, but then I find that they are almost always buried underneath
the active window, when I'd really just like to tuck them away (ON TOP) in
a corner of what I'm working on.  If I have to unbury them to use, I might
as well just go up to the Apple menu in the first place.

More seriously, in program development, one is constantly coping with partly
debugged programs that are NOT well behaved -- it is of little use to have a
nicely coded GetNextEvent() loop when you go off into an infinte loop else-
where!  The point of the "no special coding needed" thing is:  even when a
program FAILS to cooperate (for whatever reason!), the system still permits
the other tasks to go ahead.  On the Mac, non-cooperation is mostly a problem
for developers, so Apple is on very good ground in providing a non-preemptive
environment _as a first step_ towards the ultimate MAC/OS (after all, we all
know that no REAL application has bugs).

Most seriously, the whole Mac model of computing is so insistently interactive
that there isn't a hell of a lot of need for preemption -- the usual sorts of
"multitasking" that people want are background printing, downloading etc.
There WILL, on a Mac, usually be one highly interactive foreground task that
can gracefully pass its unused cycles on to your super-duper Mandelbrot set
generator chugging away beneath.  By the way, if you didn't notice, this is a
complaint -- I dislike programs that I HAVE to interact with.  One of the
beauties of UNIX is that programs can be QUIET and not flood you with inane
chatter ("Do you really want me to do this? Huh? Really, really? And how about
this next one too?  Oh, really?  And this one?")  What Apple needs is a good
dose of regular expressions.

Michael L. Siemon
contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories
ihnp4!mhxux!mls
standard disclaimer