Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!chablis!shane
From: shane@chablis.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: source code
Keywords: don't do it, it's a trap...
Message-ID: <925@mailrus.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 14 Feb 89 18:57:50 GMT
References: <490@nanovx.UUCP> <89474@sun.uucp> <1234@dukeac.UUCP> <445@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: usenet@mailrus.cc.umich.edu
Reply-To: shane@chablis.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker)
Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor
Lines: 31

In article <445@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes:
>>could buy so much user-friendly software for Macintosh ...
>
>Snicker.  UNIX has changed a LOT less in the last five years than the
>macintosh operating system.  Every system release breaks some developer's
>code.  They change the ROMS.  They add HFS.  They add color.  They add
>multiprocessing.  All these things radically change the environment; Apple
>sometimes patches to work around specific applications, but eventually
>things have to be rewritten.  The macintosh, no source included, is a
>developer's nightmare.
>
>The ``gentleman at NeXT'' is feeding us a lot of digested grasses, to
>use a polite term.
>Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office

Actually, I could say the same thing about you.  If you follow the rules of
how to program the Macintosh, then your application is very likely to run
when a new release of the system comes out.

You might not understand that, comming from a Unix background, but it is what
happens in the Mac world.  If applications break, you can be pretty sure they
were written taking shortcuts which were pointed out as not being stable in
the future.

(I found a demo windowing program written in 1984, which ran correctly under
MultiFinder on a Mac II with color.)




Shane Looker   |  Looker@um.cc.umich.edu | shane@chablis.cc.umich.edu