Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!ndcheg!ndmath!milo
From: milo@ndmath.UUCP (Greg Corson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple developers & programming on the Mac
Message-ID: <1318@ndmath.UUCP>
Date: 22 Feb 89 01:46:54 GMT
References: <3923@ece-csc.UUCP>
Organization: Math. Dept., Univ. of Notre Dame
Lines: 47

From article <3923@ece-csc.UUCP>, by jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall):
> In article <10330136@accuvax.nwu.edu> bob@accuvax.nwu.edu (Bob Hablutzel) writes:
>>
>>What DEC does have, and Apple could and should and would improve their 
>>machine if they did, is the best damn documentation I've ever layed my
>>eyes on. These people actually believe in (oh no!) _examples_ of what the
>>routines do. For complicated routines, you can have several pages of examples
>>to should the many different ways the routine can be used. APPLE SHOULD
> ...
> 
> Excuse me if I sound glib, but have you used (for example) LIB$FIND_FILE
> lately?  (Or worse, LIB$FILE_SCAN or the SYS$ equivalent?)  Shudder.  Unless
> you're adept at the mental MACRO-to-C or FORTRAN-to-C conversion (neither
> is so easy considering the VAX Calling Standard's complexity), well, you're
> likely to experiment with a lot of different parameter lists before you
> find the one that works ...
> 

VMS documentation is far from perfect I agree...but just as an aside, at least
it has a FILE_SCAN system call (to scan for files that match a wildcard).  It
also has goodies like a callable editor (much better than textedit, although
it doesn't handle fonts), data compression routines, intertask communications
and (most important) a relatively transparent way of sending/receiving data 
over networks.  If Appletalk offered a simple data-stream interface I would
be using it like crazy...ATP and other current protocols require TOO MUCH WORK
to make them practical for casual use (like chat programs, distributed
programs...etc).

I'm not trying to slam the toolbox...I love it's menu handlers and other 
goodies, particularly the user interface stuff.  But it's still missing a
lot of the stuff I consider ESSENTIAL in an operating system.  Some of the
fault lies in the fact that the core of the toolbox being written for a
128K mac...the Mac hardware has grown faster than the toolbox/finder.
And some of the things Apple originally did in the toolbox on the 128k Mac
could be done much better on the current Mac hardware...trouble is, they are
stuck with the toolbox in it's current format...if they change it too much,
all the existing Mac programs wouldn't work anymore.

Send comments, flames, job offers (really) and any old money you don't know
what to do with to....

Greg Corson
19141 Summers Drive
South Bend, IN 46637
(219) 277-5306 
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