Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UIAMVS.BITNET!AWCTTYPA
From: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: TML Warning?  What's the problem?
Message-ID: <8805020028.aa22926@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA>
Date: 2 May 88 05:27:23 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 42
X-Unparsable-Date: Sunday 01 May 88 11:26 PM CT


>Date:         Sat, 30 Apr 88 08:23:26 EDT
>Sender:       INFO-APP Info-Apple List <INFO-APP@NDSUVM1>
>From:         Roby Sherman <sector@pro-exchange.cts.com>
>Subject:      A warning to IIgs developers

>I've done extensive work with TML Pascal and TML BASIC for the past several
>months, and I'll tell you this.. For simple operations, the programs are very
>nice. For highly complex operations, the languages are trash. It appears that
>ORCA seems to be the only alternative..

I have not used TML BASIC.

However, I have used TML Pascal (both APW and stand-alone versions).  While
I *have* found some interesting bugs, I have been able to work around all
of them without an incredible amount of difficulty.

For example:
   All of TML's demo programs I've seen that start up the Line Edit toolset
   get the parameters backwards, leading to extreme flakiness.  (A memory
   manager ID gets used as a direct-page pointer.)
   [The correct order is:  UserID followed by direct-page pointer.]

   TML Pascal has a different idea of "boolean" from most of the toolsets.
   In some cases it is necessary to re-declare a toolbox routine in your
   own code, and specify "integer" instead of "boolean" to make it work
   right (then use "0" instead of false, "-1" instead of true).  If the
   problem is a function result, treat 0 as false and anything else as
   true.

If there are other problems, I definitely want to know about them--I plan
to continue using TML, and some of my coworkers are using it, too (and they
will be less prepared to track down this sort of bug--they'll call me!).

>Roby Sherman
>UUCP: [ ihnp4 cbosgd nosc ] !crash!pnet01!pro-sol!pro-exchange!sector
>ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-exchange!sector@nosc
>INET: sector@pro-exchange.cts.com

--David A. Lyons  a.k.a.  DAL Systems
  PO Box 287 | North Liberty, IA 52317
  BITNET: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS
  CompuServe: 72177,3233
  GEnie mail: D.LYONS2