nathan@orstcs.UUCP (nathan) (05/16/86)
In response to my Ten Challenges posting, I got a letter from our respected contact at Apple: > From: Larry Rosenstein <lsr@APPLE> He had this to say: > ...I liked your suggestions. Here are my comments on them. I have paraphrased his comments *just a bit* : >#1: (search string construction kit, w/ context-free grammar ability) > yes, but we at Apple prefer a less innovative approach. >#2: (graphical pipeline approach to data manipulation) > yes, but we at Apple prefer the MSDOS command-line approach to pipelines. >#3: (smart ramdisk) > yes, that would be ok; but we at Apple have hard disks, so who needs it? >#4: (two-button mouse) > no, we *like* not having enough buttons so you have to use both hands. >#5: (Copy file DA) > yes, but we at Apple are happy with our command-line solution. >#6: (GEM-style menu bar) > no, we prefer the Apple way (but it should be easy to do). >#7: (modular resource editor) > yes, Apple did this years ago, documents will be ready Real Soon Now ... >#8: (device ports in the file system, controlled by virtual resources) > yes, but some things would be slow if you did them the slow way. >#9: (document description standard) > yes, Apple will be happy to use anything you can get ANSI to stamp. >#10: (add'l challenges) > yes, we at Apple are always in need of a good belly laugh. I'm sure Larry won't mind my taking liberties with his text. (grin) Nathan C. Myers orstcs!nathan nathan@oregon-state p.s. you do know a roast when you see one, don't you?
joel@gould9.UUCP (Joel West) (05/20/86)
In article <21100044@orstcs.UUCP>, nathan@orstcs.UUCP (nathan myers) writes: > In response to my Ten Challenges posting, I got a letter from > our respected contact at Apple: > I have paraphrased his comments *just a bit* : > > >#1: (search string construction kit, w/ context-free grammar ability) > > yes, but we at Apple prefer a less innovative approach. (misc. crap deleted) > I'm sure Larry won't mind my taking liberties with his text. (grin) ... > p.s. you do know a roast when you see one, don't you? Mr. Myers is having fun, but I really don't think that his smart-ass paraphrasing contributes anything. If he would like to share Apple's response, fine; if he'd like to say that Apple was unresponsive, fine; but to attribute a tone to the response without sharing the actual facts is irresponsible. If Larry no longer responds to this forum because of one jerk who reamed him, I will personally distribute news software with a kill for nathan@orstcs.UUCP hard-wired in. Maybe Mr. Myers will someday grow up and join the real world, where he'll discover that life (and computer systems development) is full of trade-offs, that optimal solutions are not always available, that adding new features willy-nilly is neither practical or desirable. Or perhaps he'll learn that with finite resources, getting something OUT THE DOOR that can be sold and generate sales (where did you think paychecks came from?) is a real challenge. I thought the original TEN CHALLENGES were interesting and thought-provoking, so I was suprised and disappointed to see this follow-up. -- Joel West (619) 457-9681 CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA 92037 {cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA
mazlack@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (05/20/86)
In article <569@gould9.UUCP> joel@gould9.UUCP (Joel West) writes: >In article <21100044@orstcs.UUCP>, nathan@orstcs.UUCP (nathan myers) writes: >> In response to my Ten Challenges posting, I got a letter from >> our respected contact at Apple: >> I have paraphrased his comments *just a bit* : >> >> >#1: (search string construction kit, w/ context-free grammar ability) >> > yes, but we at Apple prefer a less innovative approach. > >(misc. crap deleted) > >> I'm sure Larry won't mind my taking liberties with his text. (grin) >... >> p.s. you do know a roast when you see one, don't you? > >Mr. Myers is having fun, but I really don't think that his smart-ass >paraphrasing contributes anything. If he would like to share Apple's response, >fine; if he'd like to say that Apple was unresponsive, fine; but to attribute >a tone to the response without sharing the actual facts is irresponsible. > ... >I thought the original TEN CHALLENGES were interesting and thought-provoking, >so I was suprised and disappointed to see this follow-up. >-- > Joel West (619) 457-9681 > CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA 92037 > {cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel > joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA I certainly agree with THESE parts of Joel's message. Maybe the rest was a little bit of an over reaction. But, although I have more than a few unhappinesses with Apple, technical trade-offs are a necessary part of life and they shouldn't be jerked around when they discuss them. Larry Mazlack UUCP {tektronix,dual,sun,ihnp4,decvax}!ucbvax!ucbernie!mazlack New style mazlack@ernie.berkeley.edu ARPA | CSNET mazlack%ernie@berkeley.ARPA BITNET mazlack@ucbernie.BITNET telephone (415) 528-0496 snail CS Dept, 571 Evans, U. California, Berkeley, CA 94720
srm@ucbiris.berkeley.edu (Richard Mateosian) (05/30/86)
>> >>Mr. Myers is having fun, but I really don't think that his smart-ass >>paraphrasing contributes anything. > >I certainly agree with THESE parts of Joel's message. Lighten up, guys. Richard Mateosian ...ucbvax!ucbiris!srm 2919 Forest Avenue 415/540-7745 srm%ucbiris@Berkeley.EDU Berkeley, CA 94705
joel@gould9.UUCP (Joel West) (06/05/86)
In article <764@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, srm@ucbiris.berkeley.edu (Richard Mateosian) writes: > >>Mr. Myers is having fun, but I really don't think that his smart-ass > >>paraphrasing contributes anything. > > Lighten up, guys. Sorry, but as a some-time journalist, I find I have an unusual pre- occupation with facts. This is not necessarily something that hackers, salesmen, or publicists seem to be too concerned with. So, in the interest of accuracy, I have enclosed Larry Rosenstein's actual responses. I know this is somewhat dated (he and I took successive vacations, contributing to the delays) but I think many out there would like to see the actual answers, unedited. Date: Tue, 27 May 86 12:39:59 pdt From: pyramid!voder!apple!lsr (Larry Rosenstein) To: gould9!joel@pyramid.UUCP Subject: Re: Apple's response to 10 Challenges Thanks for your comments on Usenet. ... I am enclosing my original response to Mr. Myers; feel free to post it to net.micro.mac. **** Begin Original Reply **** >From lsr Fri Jun 20 14:31:09 1986 Received: by apple.csnet (4.12/5.1.Apple) id AA02761; Wed, 7 May 86 15:03:19 pdt Date: Wed, 7 May 86 15:03:19 pdt From: lsr (Larry Rosenstein) Posted-Date: Wed, 7 May 86 15:03:19 pdt Message-Id: <8605072203.AA02761@apple.csnet> To: nathan%oregon-state@CSNET-RELAY Subject: Re: Ten Challenges (long) Organization: Advanced Development Group, Apple Computer Status: RO I liked your suggestions. Here are my comments on them. In article <21100039@orstcs.UUCP> you write: >Myers Challenge #1: (searching in editors) This is a good idea. The Macintosh development system we are working on has a nice implementation of regular expressions. They use special Mac characters for the meta-characters, rather than graphical diagrams, however. The special characters avoid some qutoing problems, but make search expressions non-portable. >Myers Challenge #2: (pipes) The development system also supports a pipeline syntax. It can't execute the individual programs concurrently, but handles the problem of creating a temporary file and running the tools in sequence. (It also allows you to send the output of a tool to a windows.) In fact the development system borrows a lot of concepts from UNIX, and makes it very easy to write these small tools. >Myers Challenge #3: (RAM disks) A good idea. I haven't seen anything that does this yet. >Myers Challenge #4: (2 button mouse) I disagree with this. If you look at the use of the second button on the Atari and Amiga you will see that it is inconsistent and hard to remember. I am very glad that we have 1 button on the Mac. >Myers Challenge #5: (Copy DA) This is a good idea. It turns out that the development system provided all the functions of the Finder with a command line interface, so you never have to use the Finder while using the development system. >Myers Challenge #6: (GEM menus) I disagree with this one also. I tried GEM and was always pulling down a menu by accident. Holding the mouse button down is not very fatiguing and is better than constantly making little slips that break your train of thought and require some action to reverse. It would be easy to do this on the Mac, however. >Myers Challenge #7: (ResEdit) ResEdit is huge precisely because it is expandable. It has custom editors for a few resoruce types and templates for many others. It is exactly written in the way you suggest; a core program with pluggable editor modules (themselves resources). Constructing templates is very easy. Writing a powerful graphical editor is more difficult, but is possible. We will publish the specs for this when they are finalized. >Myers Challenge #8: (uniform device inteface) This is a good idea. As I said the development system does some of this by allowing you to redirect input and output. We have a common language for talking to devices, and that is the driver calls. I am not sure if the general model would be useful in all cases, however. I'm sure that Quickdraw would be slower and harder to use if it went through driver calls. Also, it would be difficult to fit all the Appletalk protocols into the same model as the serial port. >Myers Challenge #9: (document standard) This is a very good idea. I'm sure that is such a standard emerges, Apple will be among the first to embrace it. >Myers Challenge #10: (more challenges) I agree with this very much. We won't be able to keep the Mac growing without people constantly breaking new ground. Larry Rosenstein Object Specialist Apple Computer UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr CSNET: lsr@Apple.CSNET -- Joel West (619) 457-9681 CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA 92037 {cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA