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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!xait!dee
From: dee@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Donald Eastlake)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Need some MF help
Keywords: MultiFinder
Message-ID: <43732@XAIT.Xerox.COM>
Date: 11 Apr 89 15:48:17 GMT
References: <1562@neoucom.UUCP> <28399@apple.Apple.COM> <3637@brunix.UUCP> <28638@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: dee@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Donald Eastlake)
Distribution: na
Organization: Transfinite Systems Company, Newton, MA
Lines: 69

In article <28638@apple.Apple.COM> keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) writes:
>In article <3637@brunix.UUCP> omh@zaphod.UUCP (Owen M. Hartnett) writes:
>>Why does there have to be a reason?  Why not just put up a flag in Sysenvirons?
>>Apple DTS always seems to have the attitude that it knows best what 
>>developers should know about (or rather, not know about).  
>From one point of view, DTS *DOES* know best what developers should know
>about. We know what is coming down in the future. We know what changes are
>being made to the System Software. Based on this knowledge, we try our best to
>prevent developers from burning themselves. We try to quide them down the road
>of Future Compatibility. That's our job. ...

I don't have any problem with guidelines.  I don't even have problems
with guidelines that Apple software breaks.  It is fine for DTS to want
some motivating informatin before they release some info and to release
it with caveats.  But that is not really what is going on with
MultiFinder.  What we have is a deliberate attempt to make it impossible
for the developer to find out if MultiFinder is running.

You can find out the version number of the System File, you can find out
the version number of the Finder, you can find out the version number
of AppleTalk, your hardware processor, whether you have a floating point
coprocessor, etc., etc., etc.  Of course programs should not lightly be
made dependent on such things.  But with all of these myriad other
version dependencies available, it is just absurd that such an attitutde
of deliberate conceilment has deveoped for MultiFinder.

You can easily check for Switcher and I don't notice it causing the
world to fall apart.  I have not done much with AUX so I don't know if
there is any easy way to check for it, but there should be.

SysEnvirons should return the MultiFinder version number and/or a
multi-tasking field with perhaps various values for none (0), Switcher
active (1), MutliFinder active (2), and maybe other values for AUX
or future systems.

>We've already seen the misuse of MultiFinder information happen. When System
>6.0 came out, WaitNextEvent was implemented all of the time. Many applications
>subsequently failed to work properly. This was despite warnings about this in 
>Technotes. 

This WAS NOT the misuse of MultiFinder information.  If Apple were not
wedged on this subject and had provided some approved method of checking
for MultiFinder, such as a version number in SysEnvirons, 90% + of these
problems would probably not have occured.

>As a major computer company, Apple has to be responsible about the kinds of
>information it gives out. We cannot in good conscience give out information to
>developers that they can use to hang themselves. This is Tech Support's
>current stance. Do you disagree with it? Do you think that DTS should supply
>the rope? If we did, do you think that the customers who constantly have to put
>up with broken software could ever forgive us?

The above is ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.  There is already so many cubic miles of
rope available in the Macintosh system to hang oneself that it does not
bear talking about.  Can you name any significant facility of the Mac that
CANNOT be used to hang oneself???  This insane quest for perfect safety,
which I can not realy believe is DTS policy, is the recipie for absolute
paralysis.

The Mac prospered as an open and flexible system.  I guess it is reasonable,
as things grow up, for the release of internals details to get a bit more
closed.  But the wedged conceilment of the presence of MultiFinder is way
at the other end of the spectrum, totally un Mac-like, and really quite
sad.

-- 
	+1 617-969-9570		Donald E. Eastlake, III
	ARPA: dee@XAIT.Xerox.COM    usenet:  {cbosg,decvax,linus}!cca!dee
	AppleLink:  D2002	Box N, MIT Branch PO, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA