info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/27/84)
From: Gustavo Fernandez <FERNANDEZ@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The Aztec C system is the obobnoxious oposite of the Conselair (sp.) Apple
development system which I saw for the first time at SUMEX. I think both
are extremes on how a development system should look and there has to be
a happy medium somewhere.
On one hand, there is the Aztec compiler which seems to have UNIX written
all over it without much regard to the niceties of the Mac user interface.
The UNIX vi (AZTEC Z) editor is modal in nature, Something I personally hate.
I hasten to say that an editor which does not use a mouse running on a system
which does shoows a higher regard for quick profits than a well thought-out
system.
On the other hand, the Conselair development system which will be marketed
by Apple is the oother extreme. Here, the mouse/menu concept is used to the
point of almost non-usability. A windowing system is nice when you can have
all the windows you would use in oone session open at one time. But when,
for memory limitations, you must transfer between applications using a small
transfer menu which is closed to the outide world, something is indeed wrong.
The exec capability is extremely limited, and available only for the 5
main programs available on the disk (Editor, Assembler, C compiler, Linker,
and executive) The only parameters are
1. Th program to run next
2. The file to use.
3. The program to run if no error occurred
4. The porgram to run if an error occurred.
I don't call this an exec file. I call it a kluge.
The plain truth of the matter is that a MAC user interface is more suited
to implementing EDITORS (in the general sense of the word... this includes
graphics editors such as macpaint) while UNIX is more suited toward non-
interactive FILTERS which take a fixed input and output and where the user
should not interfere with the process at hand. Compilers, assemblers, linkers,
etc. are such programs. Unfortunately, both types are in the normal edit-
compile-debug cycle, and I have yet to see an OS which handles both perfectly
well.
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