Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:26200 comp.lang.c++:6598 comp.sys.ibm.pc:44991
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!apollo!nelson_p
From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: RE Zortech problems
Message-ID: <48cc3c8b.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 22 Feb 90 15:36:00 GMT
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 42


 

 I was quite nonplussed by some email I received from Walter Bright 
 on his BBS in Washington State in which he said that my criticism
 of Zortech in a "public" and "insulting" manner was "not appreciated".
 And that I should restrict my "public comments to polite requests
 for help".

 After spending a ton of money on the original compiler and another ton
 of money in toll calls to Arlington and long-distance calls to Washington
 State, I've got to be polite, too?!   To begin with, I'm not a very polite
 person.   And, anyway, I didn't think I was *that* insulting.  Everything
 I said was true.   In the past I've talked to the technical support staffs
 of XYQuest, 5th Generation Systems (Fastback), Softlogic, Lotus, Quarter-
 deck, Leading Edge, Western Digital, Everex, and Microsoft.  I found
 all of them to be more knowledgable about their products than Zortech
 was about theirs.   It is not as though I called people names, made
 personal comments about them or used obscene language.  I've seen far
 worse things said about companies and products in the pages of various
 PC magazines which are much more widely read than Usenet.
 
 And WHY should I restrict my "public comments to polite requests for
 help"?   If I were in the market for a C++ compiler *I* would certainly 
 want to know what other people's experiences were with the major
 supplier of such products.  The newsgroups on which I've posted my
 comments were all either related to C or to PC products, which is where
 interested people are likely to be. 

 Keep in mind that I still think it's a good compiler.  It has never failed
 to properly compile any C code (or the few fragments of C++ code which
 I've tried); and the resulting code seems reasonably compact and fast.
 The two versions of QuickC that I own are *disasters*  (see, now I'm
 gonna get email from some Microsoft consultant)  and I compiled, so
 to speak, a long list of cases where that compiler would either choke on
 perfectly legal C code or generate buggy results.  The Zortech product has been 
 very well behaved.  Most of my complaints about it from a technical view-
 point are related to features it doesn't support such as a "huge" 
 memory model or 256 colors in 640X480 VGA.   For most people these 
 would be minor or philosophical issues. 
                                  
                                                ---Peter