Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp!ceres!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!snorkelwacker!ira.uka.de!smurf!urlichs
From: urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Think against MPW interface war (was Re: MPW wish list)
Message-ID: <1496@smurf.ira.uka.de>
Date: 7 Feb 90 20:49:45 GMT
References: <71.25cdb0c2@waikato.ac.nz> <1990Jan23.065751.29303@peace.waikato.ac.nz> <1990Jan25.003918.2359@cs.UAlberta.CA> <1990Feb6.065019.22828@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: UNiversity of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 53

In comp.sys.mac.programmer philip@pescadero.stanford.edu writes:
< I find this discussion a bit disturbing. There's a consistant thread
< that says, "Why isn't MPW more like unix?"
< 
< My question is, "Why is it so much like unix?"
< 
Please, don't. Not another I-like-MPW versus I-like-Think war.

Some people like/need/must use one, and some the other.
There is absolutely no rational basis for saying "X is better than Y", only
"I use X rather than Y because of Z".

Some people like windows with plain text which doesn't do any stupid
reformatting any time you press a semicolon, need to automate fairly complex
projects (take some Pascal for convenience, some Assembler for necessity,
Modula-2 for structure, C because Apple didn't provide Pascal interfaces for
MacTCP ;-) :-(, and the odd Fortran maths code which works but no one
understands any more. Sprinkle liberally with complex resources.
Put together by selecting "Build" from the Apple menu, leaning back, and
finally double-clicking your application.), hand many other reasons why _I_
think that MPW is a very important thing, and much better than any other
development system. (Now just merge Sade into it, fix the damn _GetCatInfo
bug, let it run under A/UX, and some other things I think I need...)

Other people like program editors which show them the correct structure (and
syntax errors) no matter what nonsense they type :-), an environment which
provides for a much simpler and faster edit-compile-run-crash-debug cycle
(_if_ your project structure and the environment are compatible -- with MPW
it's easy, write a skript to _make_ them work together...), and a whole lot of
other reasons why many people prefer integrated development environments of
the ThinkP/ThinkC type.

< LS environments are by far the biggest step forward in my experience.
< MPW doesn't add anything to the state of the art; the LS environments do
< for personal computing programming what the Mac did for the user. What I
< would like to know is how an environment of the LS variety could best be
< extended to provide the functionality of unix, without losing its low
< learning threshold. [...]

This may be correct (I wouldn't know, I don't use Think environments because
of the above reasons). However, you are talking about "How can Think{C,P} be
improved"; don't start talking about "Why is MPW so bad". You don't seem to be
talking about the problem anymore if you do.
Besides, a whole lot of people would take serious exception to the "MPW
doesn't add anything to the state of the art" part of your statement. MPW does
some things worse than Think[CP], some better, and about a whole lot of
features we can argue until the cows come home (or maybe until the Macs gets
protected memory, or until Inside Mac is one useable volume instead of ... --
but I digress) without getting anywhere.

Disclaimer: Whatever for?
-- 
Matthias Urlichs