Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: How satisfied are you with IFF?
Message-ID: <12200@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 16 Sep 88 16:43:25 GMT
References: <3427@crash.cts.com>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 32

In article <3427@crash.cts.com> haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes:
>[for the mithical line-eater (is there really such a thing?)]
>        So the question I wish to pose is;  Would you (the Amiga community)
>reject a re-design of the current IFF standard?

Yep. I would.

>        In order to maintain compatablility, I figure all current formats
>would have to be supported by any forthcomming library, to allow old programs
>to be functional.
>
>        I realize this would not be a completely painless change, but the
>current definition is flawed and if we don't do something about it, it must
>die eventually.  I'd hate to see some other machine support a different IFF
>standard which is clearly superior, and thus hurt the Amiga, which is still
>clinging to a flawed standard in the belief that any standard is better than
>none.

So far I haven't seen anything that can't be done with the current standard
and its "extension" features.  Show an example of such a case.  The claims
"if we don't do something about it, it would die" and "some other machine
..." are clearly unsubtantiated, and do nothing to make me change my opinion.

Note also that one of the Working Groups set up at DevCon is involved in 
movin the "current" standard to a loadable/sharable library.  If you do
thing on your own, without CBM's blessing you are simply bound to failure.


-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
uucp:...!pollux!papa       BIX:papa       ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu
 "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=