dorner@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (09/10/86)
>Also, somewhere in this issue is a box detailing all the things that one >must do to resize a window (on a Macintosh and on an Amiga). This is >presented as a comparison, supposedly demonstrating that the Amiga is >better than the Macintosh because you have to do less to resize a window. >The operation was expressed as one step for the Amiga, seven (more or >less, I don't have it in front of me) for the Macintosh. > >This is misleading, because in any application that I have ever written, >that code appeared once and only once. Ignored is the possibility that the >Macintosh method allows greater flexibility, etc. A casual, uninformed >reader would conclude that the Amiga was better, and that was the intent >of the demonstration. > >This is yellow journalism to the max, and certainly worthy of The National >Inquirer. All in the guise of objectivity. I, too, thought that article was not the best. But I think the window resize example has some merit. Yes, that code only has to go in an application once. But it does have to be written by me, the programmer. And for someone just learning to program the mac (like me), the code is not all that obvious. Unfortunately, there are many, many things in the Mac that are like that. The toolbox is really nifty, but you have to work to use it. Having written many libraries of routines for other computers, I understand that flexibility and ease of use are hard to put together in a library, and it's probably better that the mac is flexible. But it sure makes it hard to program, at least the first time. Thus, we have MacApp, and Transkel. These programs hide the multitude of things the programmer has to do to actually implement the user interface, on top of what's in the ROM. And what these programs do is provide a ``higher-level'' interface to the ROM routines, one that essentially takes away some of the flexibility to give lots of ease of use. I think the point of the window-resize example is that the ROMs themselves have no such facility, and ergo make life hard on the programmer. And I think that's true. Steve Dorner University of Illinois Computing Services Office dorner@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU ihnp4!cbosgd!uiucdcs!uxc!dorner I am the OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN not only of UIUC, but of the State of Illinois, The President of the United States, and the EMPEROR of the WORLD. All my decisions are final.