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From: jabernathy@pro-houston.cts.com (Joe Abernathy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: develop, Dynamo, and life in general
Message-ID: <1412@crash.cts.com>
Date: 9 Feb 90 10:36:07 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Lines: 47

In-Reply-To: message from mjohnson@Apple.COM

Eric Soldan, author of Dynamo, writes

> ... Thank you for caring enough to flame us. We care what people think.

I use both machines, and see most of the significant new software that comes
out -- I review quite a bit of it, in fact. (To those of you who say
development is at a standstill, I say that perhaps the real issue is that
there isn't much being developed that fits your tastes. Most of today's good
new software is oriented toward productivity, not recreation.)

Anyway, about Mac -> IIGS programming tools. It's fine that such tools exist,
but if you guys at Apple are going to insist on the Macintosh as the preferred
development platform -- you do, admit it -- you need to do put some serious
efforts into educating the Macintosh users who plan to do the
cross-developing. Most ports are garbage; and most of the Mac programmers who
decide to dabble in Apple II programming turn out worse garbage yet.

For example: TML Systems is a Mac outfit that is familiar with all the latest
and greatest programming concepts, particularly OOP. But when they recently
attempted to bring resources to their Apple IIGS Pascal, the results were
painful to witness. I made a four-page list of just those bugs that produced a
system crash -- never mind the design and performance flaws.

No, it isn't Apple's fault that people don't debug their software before they
sell it. But Apple does creation the distinct impression that they can drop
back and make a quick run at the Apple II market without having to go through
the research and full-scale development effort that a Macintosh application
would require. Nearly every time you see a IIGS program developed by companies
known primarily in the Mac field, you can bet it's half-done and will stay
that way.

I'm one of the few who thinks Apple's doing a fine job of supporting the II,
but as long as you're going to be a "company of individuals" with the power to
choose that Apple II development tools must run on the Macintosh, do us the
favor of finishing the job. The longer things continue on their present
course, the bigger the problem will become. The result of course will be that
the IIGS will build a reputation for shoddy applications software, and the
result of that would be that AIIDTS would find itself out of a job.


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