Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!Angelo!Portia!Jessica!rick
From: rick@Jessica.stanford.edu (Rick Wong)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT and sources
Message-ID: <169@Portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 31 Jan 89 18:28:48 GMT
References: <651@blake.acs.washington.edu> <BOB.89Jan27211930@tinman.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@Portia.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: rick@Jessica.stanford.edu (Rick Wong)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 45

I just wanted to throw in my two cents worth to the outcry for source
availability.

Most of the folks arguing for source availability seem to be coming from
a UNIX or networking standpoint.  I would like to make a pitch for source
availability for the AppKit.

I develop applications on the Mac, using MacApp, Apple's object-oriented
applications framework.  It is analogous to NeXT's AppKit.  Apple distributes
MacApp in source-code form, and I find having the source absolutely essential
to getting anything done with it.

I have four points:

1.  Object-oriented programming requires the programmer to have fairly
    precise knowledge of the protocols that have to be followed when
    "plugging into" an existing set of classes (i.e., the AppKit).
    Although _extremely good_ documentation may be able to describe
    the protocols sufficiently, it can never provide as precise a
    description as the source of what the source is expecting.

2.  Software (even NeXT's!) often has bugs.  When I run into a problem
    because some method call to an AppKit object isn't behaving as I
    expect, I would like to be able to find out if it's because of
    something I'm doing wrong, or because of a bug in the AppKit.  It's
    much easier to determine this from the source than from documenta-
    tion.

3.  Having the source available ought to greatly improve the quality
    of bug reports to NeXT.  When I find a bug in MacApp, for instance,
    I can usually find out the exact portion of code that's in error,
    fix it myself, and send an _exact_ description of the bug _and_
    its fix to Apple.

4.  Being able to fix bugs also saves me from having to kludge around
    them until they're "officially" fixed.
    
I suppose many of these points apply to having source available for all
levels.  I think they especially apply for object-oriented programming,
considering the often complex interactions between different objects.
(Smalltalk is distributed with source, isn't it?)

Rick Wong
Stanford University
rick@jessica.stanford.edu