Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!rutgers!mcnc!spl From: spl@mcnc.org (Steve Lamont) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Port of g++ Message-ID: <5970@alvin.mcnc.org> Date: 1 Jan 90 16:17:11 GMT References: <3897@orion.cf.uci.edu> <246300081@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <213@toaster.SFSU.EDU> Reply-To: spl@mcnc.org.UUCP (Steve Lamont) Organization: Foo Bar Brewers Cooperative Lines: 95 In article <213@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: >In article <246300081@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> jpd00964@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >>As I have seen this question several times in the past, I was >>curious, why would anyone want to port g++ to the NeXT? > >For the same reason they're clamoring for X Windows, MS-DOS >emulation and floppy disk drives. > >They just don't understand. (Although there is merit in being >able to say one has the complete GNU suite running on any >particular platform, that's not the point. The problem is when >Marketing departments perceive requests for the hideous, wretched >things that crippled other products as "consumer demand" and >destroy what otherwise would have been an outstanding >achievement. Um... "consumer demand" as in "able to sell it to someone who wants to buy it?" Now, I'm not a big X fan and can live without MS-DOS, I can see why one *might* want to be able to read other media than that provided (shall I venture to say mandated?) by NeXT. People have invested millions of hours and dollars in creating datasets that live on lesser media, such as floppies, and until such time as the media are made completely obsolete, there will be a need for some way of accessing them. Consider how long it took for punched cards to more or less completely leave the scene. Now you may believe that those who used cards when other media were available were retrograde technological mossbacks -- and maybe they were -- but they were the "customer." It was up to the market to serve their needs -- and, maybe, to move them toward some more modern and tractable medium, such as magnetic tape or disk. For some this process was fairly trivial, for some it was a rather large effort. In either case, there had to be some form of transitional vehicle by which to move from one medium of storage to another. Hence, in the case of tab cards, a card reader in the machine room. As far as X Windows, it turns out that whether we happen to like X or not, there are a flock of very good and very important applications already written that make use of it and until there is a groundswell of applications that live more comfortably in the NeXT environment, X will be a useful tool. In this particular site, there is a Cray Y-MP, a Convex, a flock of Suns, two SGIs, and a Stardent Titan, as well as four NeXTs. I don't think it is too much to ask to provide users with remote and distributed computing tools. It turns out that we will be developing NeXT based distributed applications tools here, but until those are completed, X would sure make life a little easier. It is easy to take a dogmatic stand about the purity of one's product and approach. It is also quite easy to go bankrupt by ignoring the needs of the marketplace, as antediluvian as they might be. Personally, I think NeXT has to work on getting a *real* processor into their cube, one that has enough power to get out of its way -- like the Maggotbox -- er -- Macintosh, it is grossly underpowered in relation to the complexity of the software it has to push. > ... America once had a reputation for >ingenuity and excellence. Japan, et al. didn't "do us in." We >did it to ourselves. It's not too late to break the cycle.) I have to take issue with this stance, although this is probably the wrong forum to do it in. America may have had the reputation that you ascribe to it. However, I submit to you that this reputation was won more or less by default. At the conclusion of World War II, the economies of Europe and Japan lay pretty much in ruins, both literally and figuratively. The United States was relatively untouched by the physical ravages of the war and, besides, had pumped up its economy through the building of the war machine. It was easy to be Number One when Number Two was so far behind. Over the last forty or so years, the economies of Europe and, particularly, Japan have rebuilt. It just isn't so easy to be Number One across the board any longer. It hurts the ego to be Number Two -- or frequently, now, Number N, where N is a large two digit number -- after being Number One for nearly five decades. I'm afraid that we, as a culture, are going to have to get used to it. This, of course, doesn't mean that we, as a culture, should give up. What it means is that we should learn to *cooperate* with one another, both within our own cultural community and internationally, and disabuse ourselves of this rather silly sophomoric notion of being Nubmer One. [I realize that you didn't say anything in your text about being Number One, but I felt that the meaning was implicit. If I have misinterpreted your words, I withdraw my remarks beforehand.] spl (the p stands for peter piper pushed a pail of pixels) -- Steve Lamont, sciViGuy EMail: spl@ncsc.org NCSC, Box 12732, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 "Reality involves a square root" Thomas Palmer