Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucsd!orion.cf.uci.edu!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: CloseFonts() problems
Message-ID: <14414@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 3 Jan 89 03:19:27 GMT
References: <3599@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> <10097@well.UUCP> <YXienJy00Vsf0AHTAo@andrew.cmu.edu> <14355@oberon.USC.EDU> <3226@amiga.UUCP> <14370@oberon.USC.EDU> <3230@amiga.UUCP>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 50

In article <3230@amiga.UUCP> jimm@cloyd.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) writes:
>)|This isn't so that your customers feel that you've returned all your memory,
>)|is it?  Or maybe to satisfy the BKDC rules or something.
>
>)That's definitely THE main reason most third parties do the HUGE AllocMem,
>)as the last thing before closing shop.
>
>Then we have identified a Point of Education.  Maybe something like 'flushlibs'
>should be included in a standard Workbench menu (and in System: ?) so that
>we can cater to people's psychological problems.  ;^)

Fine on BOTH.  Believe it or not, there are people that WON"t buy a piece of
software, if if doesn't SHOW that it returns ALL the memory.  Some of the
reviewers are even worse, and you know that products get easily killed by one
or two bad reviews.  Note that the documentation that comes from CBM and most
third parties doesn not mention anything about the fact that some stuff 
(libarries/devices/etc..) stays resident unless not used and the space is 
needed.  For myself, for the next version of A-Talk III I have taken out the
HUGE AllocMem and will furnish the "flushlibs" program on the disk, document 
it for users and reviewers that want to check that we do return all memory
and give ample WARNINg that the system might be "flaky" afterwards. Gee,
I still recall the 238 bytes that I was not freeing for which I was not 
sleeping at night :-) and that I tracked down only with the help of our
"great" Bill Hawes (thanks Bill).

>)Are these bugs still present in 1.3?  In they are, why weren't fixes included
>)in SetPatch if, as it seems from your comments, these are all known bugs?
>
>Come again, Marco?  All known bugs must be fixed in 1.3 or SetPatch?
>That's not realistic, and it makes me disinclined to mention known problems
>even in this developer-oriented forum.  I learned most of these on BIX, myself.
>No, all of them.  See you there.

Sincerely, I had not seen them in any of the BETA/GAMMA docs or on BIX. I would
have "behaved" otherwise (I mean, take the AllocMem out) if I had known
of the possible consequences.  I know other developers are in the same
situation.  Anyway, you're right, the subject is really not for Usenet.  
See you on BIX.

>Well, we've identified that *someone* needs education, and I suppose that
>includes the users.  I'll forward the suggestion to cbmvax!bugs, with
>the words "Enhancement" and "documentation" in the subject line.

Good idea.

-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
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