Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!sun!pepper!cmcmanis From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Macro languages Summary: flames ahead Message-ID: <53304@sun.uucp> Date: 16 May 88 00:17:23 GMT References: <8805140029.AA03459@jade.berkeley.edu> Sender: news@sun.uucp Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 69 In article <8805140029.AA03459@jade.berkeley.edu> SLMYQ@USU.BITNET writes: >Glad to hear it. However, as I hear, AREXX is commercial. We need >a PD version... **** Pull control Rods, NUCLEAR BURNER START ... Why the HELL is it so damn difficult to make a living supporting this machine?!!!! Look, AREXX is $50, a mere pittance even to a god damn college student. Wake up and smell the coffee, if you want well thought out, maintained, supported tools that do good things then for god sake pay for them! This entire mindset that "oh everything I want for this machine should be free." is self defeating. Sure it is wonderful when someone takes easily several thousand dollars worth of their time and 'donates' it to the BBS crowd, but no one can do that forever, and the level of sophistication in *ANY* public domain program is inversely proportional to its reliability. You can buy a damn nice C compiler that works reliably, or you can port the thing Small C has turned into and because *hundreds* of weekend hackers have pissed on it, is about as reliable as Helsinki formula. I was asked the other day what I had "done" for the Amiga. The real question was "What PD program bears your name?" And my answer is "Nothing that matters." Because I don't have the time to give away, sorry. It may sound crass but I make my living writing code, by people who understand it's value. And yet people who don't write programs have this feeling that it must not be very difficult, after all everything they use is 'free.' And these same people bitch and moan that no one has written a public domain lotus 1-2-3 clone (and often pirate legal copies because they believe that Lotus corp must be ripping them off since 'vc' is free). Think about it for a minute would you? IPC is not a simple problem, I deal with it everyday in my job, neither are Macro languages. There is a good 5 - 10 programmer years worth of work to be done here and no one wants to do it for free, can you blame them? Sure the people arguing about it may reach a consensus and have something to play with by the end of the year, and then again they may not. Why don't *YOU* stop whatever you are doing and write all the code and tools that are needed. I think we have a pretty good handle on what is involved. The Amiga is going *NOWHERE* with the public domain, because it takes 10 to 100 times longer to get something done for 'free' then it does to bite the bullet and pay someone to do what needs to be done. Look at the Mac, I guaruntee you there will be both an IPC standard and code to use it on the Mac by the end of the year, and Apple will claim to have invented it. AND ALL OF THE MAC USERS WILL PAY $100 TO HAVE THAT ABILITY ON THEIR MACHINES. You may think them lemmings for doing so, but they will have it and you will still be saying "Oh the Amiga can do that, just no one has written it yet." And in another year the Amiga will be so far behind the OS/2 machines and the Mac that the computer community will consider it BACKWARD, and PRIMITIVE and A FOLLOWER. Commodore can only do so much, we have to do the rest, and if you don't fund R&D it doesn't get done, and the people most likely to get it done are the Bill Hawes' of the world who derive a living from the Amiga and are working hard to see it reach it's potential. You do no one any favors by waiting for a 'PD' version of anything. What you do is discourage development. If you can't appreciate the reality of the situation then just remember it, if you ever work as a programmer you will understand after a time. ***** All control rods inserted, NUCLEAR reaction stopped. I don't normally react so violently but there are certain realities in the world that a significant segment of the Amiga community ignores. And since we are the ones who can make or break this machine we need to understand them. Hopefully, you will have another insight into the mechanics of the 'life' of a machine, and will be better prepared to deal with it's demise when that occurs. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.