Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lll-tis!oodis01!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wsccs!dharvey
From: dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (David Harvey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: query: Ada for SUN 3/xx running SunOS 4.0
Summary: Programmer or "User" interface?
Message-ID: <770@wsccs.UUCP>
Date: 9 Nov 88 08:10:42 GMT
References: <248@cui.UUCP> <3372@hubcap.UUCP>
Lines: 48

In article <3372@hubcap.UUCP>, billwolf@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,) writes:
>      The Telesoft people have what looks like a wonderful product;
>      we here at Clemson are evaluating it for our Suns running 4.0.
> 
>      Telesoft has an extremely good compiler interface (windows,
>      electronic buttons for the mouse to click on, etc); their
>      debugger does not look quite as strong, though.  They have
>
	<.......stuff deleted.......>
>   
>      The Verdix people claimed that their product did run on SunOS 4.0; 
>      however, Verdix seems to take user-hostility to new heights.  Their
>      claim to be "integrated into the Unix environment" seems to carry
>      the hidden caveat "By the way, you *do* like keyboard commands,
>      just as cryptic as we can possibly make them?"; in view of the 
>      vastly superior user interfaces provided by Alsys and Telesoft, 
>      the Verdix product was quickly rejected. 

Not having worked with the Verdix product or having anything to do with
the company, I don't know exactly what you mean by "user-hostility."
But if it means that you prefer an icon interface (ala Xerox PARC) over
a command line interface I can only conclude you prefer to use the
machine rather than program it.  The Macintosh is the most frustrating
equipment I have worked on to date!  On my Amiga I notice that when I
USE the machine I prefer using the mouse and clicking.  When I PROGRAM
the machine I favor a CLI (or shell if you prefer).  The reason is
simple.  It is easier for me to get something done, and I get it done
faster.  This point was not lost on Steve Jobs when creating the NeXT
machine, and prominent mention is made that the Iconic interface is
NOT the best for a programmer.  He also has listened (Steve listening
to anyone!?) to his programmers and has developed very strong tools for
programmers to use in the shell environment, not with the Postscript
interface.

My main point in writing is to reveal that having an icon based
development system is not necessarily the best way to go, especially
for the programmer.  As to the claim that an Ada compiler beats a
C compiler (especially for smaller programs), I just plain don't
believe it.  VAX Ada is especially a hog for smaller student projects.
For larger projects (say 100,000+ LOC) all bets are off.  But then,
that was what Ada was made for, right?  As a side note I have worked
with both Telesoft Ada and VAX Ada.  Neither one even comes close
to the pcc on our Ultrix machine or the Aztec compiler in terms of
either size of code or speed of execution.  But students don't even
care about those figures.  All they care about is how fast they can
DEVELOP their programs since they rarely run them more than once or
twice anyway.  So don't be too fast to write a product off, especially
for students who actually love a command line interface!