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From: jmpiazza@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (Joseph M. Piazza)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Multitasking and interactivity issu (nonsense)
Summary: Spare us from multitasking misinformation
Keywords: misinformation, multitask, Amiga, Multifinder
Message-ID: <18121@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 21 Feb 90 18:47:24 GMT
References: <105048@<1990Jan13> <126900151@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
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Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci
Lines: 68


	I need to clean-up some misinformation.

In article <126900151@p.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:

>Mitchell, after talking to you through email, I thinkit is pretty
>clear you are ignorant of the way the macintosh is designed.  I wish
>you'd go back to reading comp.sys.amiga.

	For those who may not be aware of it, Amiga users tend to be even
more fanatical than Mac users.  :->

	Well, I think we can all agree that at its beginning the Mac wasn't
designed to multitask.  The Lisa 2? yes.  Amiga?  yes.   Mac?  No.

>...  The macintosh is an interactive computer.
>The purpose of an interactive machine is to interact with the user in
>better ways, not to spend time trying to do a zillion things behind
>that person's back.

>Multifinder is an unqualified success in that respect.

	Nonsense.  I've discovered that I can't trust downloading a number
of files while doing too much of anything else -- it's too easy for some of
those files to get trashed.  And forget about doing anything else but
wait when formating a disk.

	The Multifinder is great for task switching as well as running some
concurrent tasks but hardly an "unqualified success," ...

>People criticize Apple for not adding multitasking to multifinder,

	... because if it was, nobody would be complaining.

	"Oh, please Mr. Apple!  Don't make my Macie multitask!  It's soooo
horrible!  It's too scary for me!"

	It's incredible that so many people who love their own
machines that multitask "to a lesser degree" post articles that dismiss the
importance and usefulness of multitasking "to a greater degree" on
other machines.  And then there are those that even go beyond that:

>but Apple understands that the development effort is
>better spent enhancing the interactive portions (sound, color,
>postscript), than enhancing the lives of applications programmers

	I'm sure all Mac developers would be thrilled to learn about this.

>One nice thing about the macintosh is that the single-processing
>aspect eliminates the race conditions that crop up frequently in many
>multitasking windowing environments.

	Yeah, just like a Mac doesn't need color because there are some
color blind people out there.  Or maybe we should spare millions of people
from unnecessary exposure to CRT radiation by using punch cards.  Sheesh,
get a life.

Flip side,

	joe piazza

---
In capitalism, man exploits man.
In communism, it's the other way around.

CS Dept. SUNY at Buffalo 14260
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