Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!clive
From: clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: programming environments (was: multitasking)
Message-ID: <9831@drutx.ATT.COM>
Date: 4 Jan 89 20:25:47 GMT
References: <6475@fluke.COM>
Organization: resident visitor
Lines: 42

From article <6475@fluke.COM>, by mce@tc.fluke.COM (Brian McElhinney):

(replying to Amanda Walker's well-spoken expression)

> I want the Macintosh operating system to be as advanced as the user
> interface, or at least a closer match.

> It is a testimony to the talent of Apple's employees that the present 
> incarnation works as well as it does.  But is it any wonder people complain?

Brian, 

I have a task for you.  I really do 'wonder that people complain'.

Can you come up with something important to do, which the present Mac 
operating system _won't_ let you do?  You can pass on IPC and its
opened possibilities, since that's apparently in the works.

We've disposed of the hobgoblins which haunt people who worry about
what it might not do; such as allow background tasks time during dialogs, etc..
It does these things fine.

I think the same is true of 'I want my Unix command line interface, pipes, 
and utilities'.  With MPW, and especially the latest 3.0, it's quite apparent 
that the Mac OS easily supports an at first similar appearing, but very much 
superior interface:  'live scripts', with ever so many features you'd 
really miss doing without.

Listening, it must be clear that people in the 'straight Unix' community, 
especially new engineers and school people, have a constant murmur going with 
just about as much unpleasant to say about Unix itself:  the most especially 
preferred of all, 'not a real modern OS'.

Yes, there will be better things, for Mac and other machines.
Probably as with the living world in our better dreams, they will become 
expressions of plurality of cultural context, rather than singular
'better answers'.

That world might just be beginning to grow up, into the next phase at
least.  Will computer programmers grow with it?

Clive Steward