Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!gatech!dcatla!dxjsb
From: dxjsb@dcatla.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: C's that do not impose the 32K global data limit
Keywords: Which ones?  How good are they?
Message-ID: <6319@dcatla.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jul 88 13:56:19 GMT
References: <320@intek01.UUCP>
Reply-To: dxjsb@sunb.UUCP (Jack S. Brindle)
Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA
Lines: 32

Mark McWiggins writes:

> So: I understand that Aztec C does not impose this restriction, and that
> it works with MPW.  Does it have another fatal flaw, or do those of you
> who use it find it satisfactory?  Are there other possible choices for
> someone in our position?    

Well, My biggest problem with Manx/Aztec C is their inability to
properly support the product. I've been a user since the product was
originally released by in the summer of 1984. The current version is 3.4b,
and has been out for a year now. It suffers several problems, most notably
it generates errors whenever you try to declare a pointer to a Pascal
function anywhere but in global memory. Since the product has not been
upgraded for a year, it does not have support for MultiFinder or any of the
other features introduced in the System 5.0 release (much less 6.0!).
Manx has promised an upgrade since last fall, but have yet to deliver. It
is obvious that they place much higher priority on their Amiga and Atari
products than on the Mac stuff. I bet they have also seen their Mac sales
drop off over the last several years, due to the emphasis being elsewhere.
I wonder how they would do in the other markets given some competition.
   Actually, Aztec C is not all that bad. It still has features that no one
else has, such as the ability to get Assembler code from the compiler. It
produces nice, tight, fast code. If you are used to UNIX, you will prefer
it interface, which is an adaptation of the Bourne shell (This also means
scripting among other things). It has a _VERY_ complete set of support
utilities that are very UNIX-like. It also will do what you want, under
their "Large Machine" states. If they ever can get version 3.6 (and even,
dare we hope, 4.1???) released and shipping, it should be a very good system.
   As you can see, my problem is not with their compiler/system, which I
very much like, but in their inability to properly support that system. We
(Brincomm Technology) plan to switch to MPW as soon as 3.0 is released.
Good luck, Jack Brindle.