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From: bell@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Mike Bell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: More John Dvorak comments
Message-ID: <4975@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 2 Sep 88 16:10:11 GMT
References: <18509@neabbs.UUCP> <24516@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <31930@clyde.ATT.COM> <6414@chinet.UUCP> <797@mccc.UUCP> <3836@bsu-cs.UUCP> <799@mccc.UUCP>
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Reply-To: bell@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Mike Bell)
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In article <799@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
>In article <3836@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>...In article <797@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
>...>Hi, Ward.  You probably find those easier to remember because you have
>...>been using them since CP/M 1.4 - at least.  I wonder which would be
>...>easier to remember if you had started with UNIX.
>...
>...Good point.  
>
>Thanks!
>
>...(The Macintosh is eliminated
>...even before we start, because it doesn't have any command language at
>...all, just cute little pictures that won't let me do something as
>...trivial as copy one disk to another without gymnastic gyrations.  Nor
>...will it let me compile and run a C program that is impertinent enough
>...to expect argc and argv to be supplied by the operating environment.)
>
>Good grief!!  Is there no way to get a command line??
>
>Pete




   OK everyone, how about we stop Mac Bashing. I am a programmer who works
with both machines, and I think that the comments made above are pretty
biased. On the Mac, you dont need a command line. If you want to open document
Y created with program x, you point to the icon of the document and open it.
The program that created it is automatically invoked. You dont need a command
line; the operating system takes care of it.

  The comment about "cute little pictures" seems kind of funny; what is the
presentation manager (nice business like phrase) if not a copy of the Mac
OS ? It seems that everyone who bashes the Mac jumps on the OS/2 bandwagon
without any second thoughts. The Mac II is a far more powerful machine than 
all but the most juiced-up PC compatible/ps-2. If you dont believe me, try
this yourself -- benchmarks published in BYTE dont mean a thing. Each 
application uses a computer differently. I ported one of my larger C programs
to the Mac II from a compaq 386 , and found a FOUR times improvement in speed
(5 minutes vs. 20). It was heavily math intensive finite element analysis, 
and both machines were using their respective co-processors.

     In some instances, there are advantages to using one machine over another.
But, offhand dismissals of the Mac , seemingly without any understanding of
the Mac OS we could all do without.



		Michael Bell
		Bell@eniac.seas.upenn.edu