info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (07/09/84)
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 84 13:40:49 edt
From: uw-beaver!mark@harvard.ARPA (Mark Lentczner)
To: CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA, info-mac@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
Subject: MAC as a closed system (micro-flame)
Cc: pourne@MIT-MC.ARPA
I agree that the MAC is, to some extent a closed system. Sorry,
Dan Winkler, just having 3000+ pages of documentation doesn't
make a system open. Those pages may tell you how things are
done, but those things are not nessicarilly done in the most
flexible way.
The MAC provides a very rich environment in which to program, but
that environment is very fixed with respect to the way that things
are to be done in it. By forcing the interface to such rigidity
Apple closed off other ways of doing things as well as fixes to
things that were done differently than we would like.
In general I say bravo to the MAC, but it isn't the most flexible
of environments. There are alot of things that go on inside there.
And they all function well, IF you use them and think about them
in the ways Apple does. But, if you look at things in a different
way, then the system closes up. It is a closed system 'cause it
makes you design & program in the way Apple thought to do it...
-mark lentczner
electronic music studio
music department
harvard university
cambridge, ma 02138
lentczner@harvard
{allegra,genrad,ihnp4,ima,ucbvax}!harvard!lentczner