Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!unisoft!gethen!farren
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: There is a place for you in the computer industry...
Message-ID: <895@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 25 Apr 88 06:16:40 GMT
References: <40117UH2@PSUVM>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland
Lines: 40

In article <40117UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
>I will probably NOT buy the $100 A-W manual set, because I cannot justify
>that expense right now.

Buy the manuals.  At least, buy the Rom Kernel Reference Manual: Libraries
and Devices, the Intuition Reference Manual, and the AmigaDos manual from
Bantam.  Unless, of course, you don't plan on using any of the Amiga's
features, but are willing to write plain-vanilla, text-only code.  And if
you want to have a GOOD understanding of how the Amiga OS works, better
get the Rom Kernel Reference Manual: Exec, too, and maybe Rob Pike's book.

>PS  While I can see Lattice saying "An Amiga developer will have all those
>other manuals, autodocs, and so on, so why should we duplicate it?"
>I think they have gone a little too far.  I mean, the manual doesn't even
>have a man page for any of the AmigaDos system calls like Open(),
>Close(), and so on.  (Or are those in exec?)

It isn't their place to provide all of that - those are highly system
dependent, and rely on an overall understanding of the Amiga OS.
They provide complete descriptions of every routine in the Lattice
C library.  For descriptions of system-level routines, go to the Amiga
manuals.

>The manual describes malloc(), which is well described in at least
>10 other places on my bookshelf, but not AllocMem(), which is not
>well described any place else on my bookshelf.

Because AllocMem is an Exec function, not a C library function.

>Lattice--You ought to include another volume, I think.

Nope, but YOU definitely should.  Don't try to take short-cuts, you'll
just end up pissing off everyone who uses your programs because you
missed something essential, like effective use of multi-tasking or
expansion memory.

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame