Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!rat
From: rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Following Programming Guidelins
Summary: Not all it's cracked up to be
Message-ID: <551@madnix.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 89 05:38:51 GMT
References: <8903121951.aa07292@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt)
Distribution: na
Organization: ARP Software, Madison, WI
Lines: 46

In article <8903121951.aa07292@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons") writes:
| | Well, a lot of programmers don't follow the guidelines out of
| | ignorance; a lot of 'em -- particularly authors of Public
| | Domain/ShareWare applications and DA's -- don't really have the time
| | or the interest to follow all the rules perfectly, and (a similar
| | thing) many goals in programming can be accomplished much quicker,
| | easier, faster, etc. using illegal entry points or whatever.  Is this
| | good for functionality?  Sometimes.  But is it good for future
| | compatibility?  Nope, unfortunately.
| 
| Ugh.  Lack of _time_ is no excuse at all.  Programmers who don't
| take the time to do things in a correct way just waste the time of
| their _users_.
| 
| Don't knock PD & Shareware stuff across the board:  sure, there is
| _some_ low-quality stuff, and there's some high-quality stuff.  My
| stuff follows rules when they exist.  Things like Nifty List
| necessarily assume undocumented things like the structure of a
| master pointer record.  If they change, I'll update Nifty List
| appropriately.
| 
| Taking silly shortcuts & other shortsightedness is not only bad for
| _future_ compatibility:  it's also bad for _present_ compatibility
| with other applications and utilities.

I would maintain that following ALL guidelines is not necessarily
a good thing.  I have been appalled by the low quality of ROM code
for quite a while.  ROM calls are routinely circumvented to improve
speed and simplify programming.  Perhaps all we need is someone to
rewrite the ROMs.

I would agree however, that in a tight-nit system such as GS/OS and
the Macintosh MFS compatibility guidelines are mandatory.  Yet, under
Prodos and Prodos-16, I would maintain that the ROMs are worth avoiding -
so write to the 80-column screen directly, write to the ACIA directly -
read the keyboard directly - most average programmers can improve on these
somehow, someway.

           [david]

-- 
======== David Douthitt :::: Madison, WI :::: The Stainless Steel Rat ========
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