Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!indri!lll-winken!uunet!tektronix!reed!elbaum
From: elbaum@reed.UUCP (Daniel Elbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Total Novice...(please excuse)
Message-ID: <12536@reed.UUCP>
Date: 24 Apr 89 03:41:47 GMT
References: <782@sunkisd.CS.Concordia.CA> <899@sactoh0.UUCP>
Reply-To: elbaum@reed.UUCP (Daniel Elbaum)
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 37

In article <782@sunkisd.CS.Concordia.CA>, kiron@db1.CS.Concordia.CA (Kiron Bondale) writes:
> Could someone please point me to where I might find this info...

[some questions from a Mac owner looking into an Amiga]

> 5) Do I need to read another 3 inches of manuals to be able to program
>    the Amiga toolbox (in C).


If you know C already and are comfortable with linked lists and
some slightly tricky structure declarations (in effect, using
structures as objects with inherited data types), you'll find
the Amiga programmers' interface much easier to deal with than
the Mac's.  For one thing, if for example you're trying to bring
up a window, you just need, in addition to general background,
to read the section on windows.  If you want to open files and
do i/o, you just need to read the DOS manual.  There's no long
list of other areas you need to know to be able to work with
one subsystem.  I found the Amiga a real breath of fresh air
after wrestling with the Mac toolbox.

The main thing to keep in mind is that each 'toolbox', or library,
is pretty much standalone, and you have to open it, almost like
a file, to be able to use it.  These runtime libraries reside
on disk rather than in rom.  You usually need to open between
two and five of them in a typical application.

And here's the good news: with a couple of exceptions, you don't
have to set up parameter blocks to be able to call these routines.
Just give it a few arguments.  In this respect, they're a lot
more like UNIX system calls than Mac OS calls.


-- 
                      :                       Daniel Elbaum
 Responsible for all  :               tektronix!reed!elbaum
 disclaimed postings  :                              elbaum@reed.bitnet