Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!ukma!gatech!bloom-beacon!apple!shebs
From: shebs@Apple.COM (Stanley Todd Shebs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: multitasking and IPC (was: System 8.0: no more DA's.)
Message-ID: <363@internal.Apple.COM>
Date: 3 Jan 89 19:03:59 GMT
References: <1988Dec16.191309.21623@cs.rochester.edu> <11540172@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 24

In article <11540172@hpsmtc1.HP.COM> dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David L. Williams) writes:
>Yeah, so where are all the great applications for us to use? UNIX is what 17+
>years old has supposedly the most powerful development tools in the universe
>yet there doesn't seem to be a group of sexy, easy to use, fun applications.

I used to wonder about that too, and started looking around.  It seemed to me
that an important use of Unix was to develop programs for other machines.
For instance, there are hordes of programmers writing code for microprocessors
in automobiles, microwaves, toasters, and so forth.  Another group of users
are institutions that have large applications like typesetting for books,
airplane CAD databases, and investment analysis.  "Sexiness" is less crucial
than reliability, "fun" is less important than functionality.  (This is not
to say that Macs can't do typesetting, CAD, or trend analysis, but there is
a big difference between modelling one valve and maintaining a database of 
*all* the parts in a 747!)

It's interesting that from the end-user's point of view, Macs and PCs are
the only computers used "as computers", that is, you can run different
programs at different times for the purpose of processing information.
Both embedded microprocessors and data-processing mainframes are by comparison
part of the world's infrastructure, and rarely visible to non-programmers.

							stan shebs
							shebs@apple.com