Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!enea!tut!santra!jmunkki
From: jmunkki@santra.HUT.FI (Juri Munkki)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: MacTutor gripe!!!
Message-ID: <14803@santra.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jul 88 13:23:56 GMT
References: <730043@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <27096@bbn.COM>
Sender: jmunkki@santra.UUCP
Reply-To: jmunkki@santra.UUCP (Juri Munkki)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 40

From article <730043@hpcilzb.HP.COM>, by tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson):
> Is anyone besides me getting frustrated at the lack of LSC (or at least
> MPW C) examples in MacTutor?  

No, not really. I guess C programmers do not wish to document their code
well enough for publication... or maybe C programmers are just lazy :-).

In article <27096@bbn.COM> dtani@bbn.com (Dan Tani) writes:
>got my latest copy.  Yea, if I were a MAC guru, I'd be able to extract handy
>tips from the FORTH, ASM and BASIC examples, but I thought I was using the
>"standard" programming language - LSC!!!!.

I think the listings are not there so that you could blindly type the code
into your Mac and use it. The most important material should be in the text
part of the article. The listings should be there only to prove that the
principles, techniques and algorithms presented in the text really work.

>I'm Mad as Hell and I'm not going to read FORTH Code any more!!!!!

The problem with Forth and Basic is that you have to fight the compiler/
interpreter to get to the real Macintosh that is hidden behind tons and
tons of glue. A large portion of the text is dedicated to explaining how
to create wierd code. "Programming" reminds me of the "synthetic programming"
that can be done a HP41C calculator.

C, Pascal and Assembler are best suited for magazine articles, because
the techniques can be easily adapted to other languages.

Forth is not a bad language... the implementations are just too limiting.

>  I'm writing to MacTutor today!

Good! It is surprisingly easy to get something published in MacTutor. I
think that everyone who has something to say should try it...

Juri Munkki
jmunkki@santra.hut.fi
jmunkki@fingate.bitnet

Disclaimer: On a 1 to 10 scale (10=very good), this article rates a low 1.