Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!ur-valhalla!sperry
From: sperry@nebula.ee.rochester.edu (Bob Sperry)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Xerox PARC's Cedar (garbage collection)
Message-ID: <2248@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>
Date: 22 May 89 13:16:51 GMT
References: <460002@hpbsla.HP.COM> <11735@well.UUCP> <41977@oliveb.olivetti.com>
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Reply-To: sperry@ee.rochester.edu (Bob Sperry)
Organization: UR Dept. of Electrical Engg, Rochester NY 14627
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Prior to 1986, I was employed by Xerox writing code in Mesa in both the
XDE and Viewpoint environments. My impression of this discussion is that
a number of people are "shooting from the hips". For the development of
a large software system I have not seen an environment better than
the Cedar environment. For developing robust, non-numeric code for "product"
software I have not seen a language I perfer to Mesa.

The reasons for developers leaving Xerox Parc are probably as numerous as
those that have left. Overall, I think that they were very happy with the
Cedar environment that they created, and very disillusioned with the
managements handling of their creation. The book "Fumbling the Future," only
touches the surface.

Currently, I am programming in C in a UNIX environment. Frankly, I don't
understand its popularity for a workstation. I perfer Cedar, yet I expect
to see a Cedar like environment coming from Japan long before I expect
to see one coming from Xerox. Currently, the best way for a workstation
manufacturer to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack is
by offering a superior software environment.