Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!jesup
From: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Amiga Roadblocks to User Friendliness
Message-ID: <5486@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 10 Dec 88 00:48:46 GMT
References: <8812091849.AA02843@cloud9.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 37

In article <8812091849.AA02843@cloud9.berkeley.edu> dillon@CLOUD9.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
>:1. make sure commercial applications never need boot time configurations
>:such as ASSIGN or PATH?  
>
>	Many commercial applications must reference modules within 
>themselves, dictionaries, help files, control files, etc..., and
>the absolute best way to do this is by assuming they exist in a
>custom assign'd place.  For example, the company Foo might have a 
>dictionary program which assumes the dictionary can be found in
>foodict:

	There is a better solution, which I used in Sub Battle Simulator.
Everytime I need to open a file, I call MyOpen(file,mode).  MyOpen first
tries an open relative to the current directory, then it tries with
the diskname (assignname) on the front.  This makes the program run on a
harddisk with no assigns needed, from WB or CLI, even if you're in a different
directory (though for a different directory it needs the assign).

>	Without Assign's, most large commercial programs have little
>Flexibility.  It should be obvious from past experience, when programs
>made ridiculous assumptions like there had to be a floppy in DF0:, or
>the support files for the program were in the current directory or
>something like that.  Yick.

>	Even a 'stupid-user-intallation' program would have trouble
>for the same reasons... that there is no way to tell how that user's
>startup-sequence is setup, it would depend on who he bought the drive
>from.  And before you say it, tracing out the commands a startup-sequence
>does is out of the question too for obvious reasons (if you just think a
>little).

	However, if there were a standard file that contained nothing but
assigns, then installation scripts could add assigns to it safely.

-- 
You've heard of CATS? Well, I'm a member of DOGS: Developers Of Great Software.
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup