Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!dcw From: dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Toolbox Reference Errata Message-ID: <11737@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 29 May 89 22:02:43 GMT References: <8905211959.AA07191@crash.cts.com> <11617@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <31468@apple.Apple.COM> Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 80 In article <31468@apple.Apple.COM> mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) writes: >In article <11617@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes: >> >>How about two $30 books titled "Apple //GS Toolbox Reference", vols 1 >>& 2? The first release was buggy, and they fixed some and reprinted. >>If you happened to buy a copy of the first release, well tough. Shell >> >>This should not have happened. Something like a programmer's ref >>(which was in beta test through APDA for some time) should go to >>quality press *without bugs.* It annoys me when I have to shell out >>money for bug fixes. >All right, Dave, we could try it this way - every time we add a new tool, or >find a bug in an existing tool, or change the way the tools work to add new >or enhanced functionality - we just won't tell anyone. That way your Toolbox >Reference set will never become obsolete. You're misunderstanding my whining. For a long while, I could only get Vol 2 at my local bookstore. I waited for Vol 1 to appear, and it didn't. I went ahead and bought Vol 2. Just inside the front cover (right on the page with all the disclaimers/etc) it says, "First printing, December 1987." By a remarkable stroke of luck, my part time job here at MIT took me on a trip to Apple Computer. I stayed in Palo Alto and I visited Stanford. Lo and Behold, the bookstore there has Vol 1 for sale. I pick it up and it says, "Second Printing, March 1988." It's then that I see on the net that the first printing had several bugs (like parameters are out of order and other stuff). Corrections were posted by observant users. Not a word from Apple (although DTS was sorely understaffed at the time according to a poster much later). Never was there an offer from Addison Wesley for an update from the first to second printing. I asked an AW-type at a Macworld show what they intended on doing about it. "Buy the new copy," I was told. Hell if I'm going to toss more money for buying too early. It's like buying a replacement car in order to fix the stereo. That's silly. >If you don't want to have to replace beta manuals with final ones, then don't >buy beta manuals. I never bought any beta manuals. I'm not really in a hurry (although I am curious) to learn the GS innards. Other things are taking too much time. I just assumed that a final copy that went to quality press would *at least* be bug-free relative to the current rom/system disk. >My APDAlog (actually, Llew's) shows the _Toolbox Reference Update_ at $30. I bought that. You may have noticed in my original post that I don't mind paying for *updates*. It's the bug fixes I'm charged for that piss me off. >Your current books aren't "obsoleted"; this new one supplements them. It >tells you what changes have been made, what errors we've found, and adds >new documentation for four new tools. There will be more coming this summer >from APDA to document the 5.0 additions, including TextEdit, the Resource >Manager, super controls and the thousands of other enhancements made for 5.0. >For those who want the information; I suppose there is a school of thought that >says that 5.0 was unnecessary since it makes the existing Toolbox Reference >set a little out of date. Believe you me - I am one of the happy ones that 5.0 is on the way! I will buy any toolbox reference updates that appear in the APDAlog. I'm just whining that sneaking an update through (first and second printing) is unfair. It was left to the users to find the problems. On a seperate note, the Mac tech notes can be had on a hypercard stack. That is *most useful*. A couple of 800k disks (or however much it takes up - we have Phil and Dave's Excellent CD) is so much better than keeping a binder. Now, I know the technotes are available as text files, but is there going to be a program to help organize and search through everything? That would be nice. Actually, are the current toolbox refs available as text? Even having it on a hypercard stack would be OK, as some Apple // types can reach a Mac somewhere. Dave Whitney A junior in Computer Science at MIT dcw@athena.mit.edu ...!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!dcw dcw@goldilocks.mit.edu I wrote Z-Link & BinSCII. Send me bug reports. I use a //GS. Send me Tech Info. "This is MIT. Collect and 3rd party calls will not be accepted at this number."