Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!petro!swrinde!ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wes
From: wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: rsrc_load and drop-down menus
Message-ID: <138@obie.UUCP>
Date: 10 Apr 88 06:13:09 GMT
References: <2779@crash.cts.com>
Organization: the Well of Souls
Lines: 71
Summary: MWC 3.0 has finally (almost) arrived!

In article <2779@crash.cts.com>, sreeb@pnet01.cts.com (Ed Beers) writes:
> Actually you can't get the resource construction set by buying the developers
> kits.  The developers kit I received last month consisted of:
> 
>         a)  Lots of documents but no schematics.
>         b)  MWC ver 2.1.7
>         c)  A nondisclosure agreement
>         d)  Nothing else.
>         e)  NONE of the DRI software.
>
> I think that Kuma? sells a resource editor.

Guess what I got from the Federal Express girl today?  MWC compiler
version Beta 2.9, MWC Resource program, compiler, and decompiler
version 1.01, and CSD version 0.9.something.

I was a beta tester for MWC for 2.0 and 2.1, this might have had
something to do with my receiving the beta versions.  I was, of
course, hip deep in another project when I picked up the envelope, and
had to wait almost 6 hours before tearing into the software.

Immediately upon arriving home, my brother (known to the net as
sp7040!jsp or wsccs!john) and I installed the software on the ol'
SH204.  We ran through one of the CSD tutorials - nifty keano.

Then we went off and played with the Resource program (GEM version)
for a little while - I really like the user interface.  They have
floppy disks for the floppy drive icons, a stack of blocks for each
of the hard disk partitions (labelled `block device'), and a paper-
shredder icon for getting rid of things.  Perhaps this is to keep Apple
from suing MWC?  It doesn't look the least bit like a Mac, and it is more
appropriate; recovering things from a shredder is difficult beyond
belief.

We worked with the compiler a bit too.  It does *seem* to compile
notable faster, we haven't run any benchmarks yet.  We'll try to do a
drystone tomorrow and post the results.

Then we went and made a large program John has been working on
debuggin, and started through it with CSD.  I have used Microsoft's
Codeview a fair amount, in C, MASM, and Fortran, and have used the
VAX/VMS debugger in C, Modula-2, and Fortran, and Unix Sys V `sdb' in
C and f77.  CSD blows them all away with one little feature: CSD has
what MWC calls an EVALUATION WINDOW.  You can type the name of a
variable (and even type-cast it), or *any valid C expression*, and it
will be re-evaluated *each time a breakpoint is reached*.  Think about
this - if you want to trace a variable in a loop, all you do is break
point at the beginning (or end) of the loop, and put a printf
statement to print the variable in the evaluation window.  

    +------------------------------------------------------------+
    | I LOVE THIS DEBUGGER!  I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED THIS DEBUGGER! |
    |     CSD IS THE BEST PROGRAMMING TOOL OF THE DECADE!        |
    +------------------------------------------------------------+

OK, OK, I'm calmed down again.  Anyhow, the new version of MWC
includes an RCS that is better than any I've seen yet, and a debugger
that will make it so you don't DREAD debugging anymore.  Don't bother
with Kuma until you've sent in your update card and gotten MWC 3.0!

Disclaimer:  As I stated earlier, I was a beta tester for MWC 2.0 and
2.1.  I recieved free compiler updates for beta testing.  I am not nad
have never been an employee of Mark Williams Co. (although if asked to
be one, I'd probably have to think it over for 4 or 5 nanoseconds
before agreeing :-).  I just think they do a really good job of
producing compilers for the ST.
-- 
    /\              -  "Against Stupidity,  -    {backbones}!
   /\/\  .    /\    -  The Gods Themselves  -  utah-cs!utah-gr!
  /    \/ \/\/  \   -   Contend in Vain."   -  uplherc!sp7040!
 / U i n T e c h \  -       Schiller        -     obie!wes