Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: APDA on a disk
Message-ID: <7385@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 20 May 89 19:53:57 GMT
References: <31042@apple.Apple.COM> <7370@hoptoad.uucp> <1881@husc6.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 52

In article <1881@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.UUCP (Rich Siegel) writes:
>	The architecture of MPW is incompatible with the design tenets
>of LightspeedC (or Lightspeed Pascal, for that matter). For example,
>there is no way that the instant-link/instant run cycle can happen,
>due to the slowness of the MPW linker.

Who said anything about using the MPW Linker?  Obviously you're not
going to undercut the advantages of your product.  However, there is no
intrinsic reason that LSC couldn't use the MPW Shell with its own
linking capabilities.

Incidentally, we're using the word "instant" in, shall we say, a
creative manner, eh?

>In addition, the integration of tools to the shell is nowhere near as
>tight as it needs to be to maintain the project management and auto-
>make facilties, and the editor can't support features like option double-
>click to locate a symbol, or the pop-up menus that provide instant
>access to #include files.

True enough, but a few extensions to the editor should be easy enough
to make.  It's already extensible; adding more extensibility to support
more powerful third-party products seems like something Apple ought to
want to do.  As for the pop-ups for include files, what are they?  I
was just commiserating with several other five-year Mac programmers the
other day about how hard it can be to get at include files stored in
the THINK C folder.  None of us knew of a shortcut.  One of my
complaints about the LSC interface, good as it is overall, is that
there are too many buried features.  Stuff is supposed to be advertised
in the menus and dialogs.

>Have you forgotten the Aztec C product from Manx?
>It's a command-line interface, with tool and editor support. Very much
>like MPW, but not as slick. (Commando's pretty nifty stuff!)

Yes, and I think most other people have forgotten it as well.  MPW and
Lightspeed are the two serious C compilers in the current market.  I
haven't used Aztec, but I doubt its tool set is anywhere near as rich as
MPW's.  In any case, it is a single-use system, not a general purpose
one like MPW, and its main functionality (a C compiler) would not
be infringed on by free distribution of the basic MPW Shell and tools.
It would only be in competition if Apple were to distribute a free C
compiler, which I recommend against (and which I'm sure they wouldn't
do regardless of my advice!)  Finally, Aztec really ought to just
bring itself into line with MPW if it's so similar.  I doubt porting
its stdio-based (right?) tools would be more than the work of a week.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
 and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming
 feature.  They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
    -- Thomas Jefferson