[net.micro.mac] The apple public-domain editor

tjb@warwick.UUCP (Fleabrain) (07/17/85)

Has anybody out there used the 28-Oct-84 version of apple's public domain
mouse based program editor? We got a copy on our Aztec C 1.06D discs, and
use it in preference to Aztec's VI-like (gag!) editor.
	However, it does seem to have a few bugs, like not updating the
the screen enough after cut-and-pastes, and also occasionally
omits to save your file, even though it whirs the drives in the usual fashion.

Is there a more recent version available? Any information would be
appreciated.

My path is someting like:

{seismo????}!mcvax!ukc!warwick!snow!tjb

Thanks in advance,

Tim Bissell		University of Warwick, England.

scott@yale.ARPA (Walter Scott) (07/24/85)

[I can't believe this bug is still around]

This is a followup to an article about 'Edit', Apple's public-domain
editor which comes with MDS, Aztec C, and presumably several other
programming languages.  I have been using Edit heavily for the past few
months as part of my Aztec-C system, on a 128K Mac, and although I
greatly enjoy its multiple-windows-onto-multiple-files capability and
other features, I have been greatly inconvenienced by its bugs.  Many
times Edit has pretended to save a file when actually it doesn't, so
when I reopen the file I have lost all my changes.  Edit has also been
known to munge, chew up, and generally destroy files to an extent that I
always have to keep backups of everything and never know when I'm going
to lose data.  Also, it seems to be lacking in error checks for low
memory, because I can easily crash the system by opening too many
windows, keeping a large file in memory, changing the font on a large
file, etc. In general, Edit has been a source of much grief for me.  I
still prefer it to MacWrite for program editing, and I'm not going to
buy Word just to use as a text editor.  I would much rather have Apple
fix the bugs in Edit and send out an updated version.

Walter Scott
..decvax!yale!scott

paul@fcstools.UUCP (Paul Perkins) (07/26/85)

I've used the Oct-84, Jan-85, and "1.0" (MDS) versions of Edit on a 512K mac.
Jan-85 and 1.0 are said to be "the same"; they are the same size, anyway.
The Jan-85/1.0 versions still can't figure out how to update the screen
correctly in some situations, and still bomb rather often, but both seem
less frequent than in the older version.  I'm not sure if the "spins disk
but doesn't really save" bug and the "scrambles file contents" bug still
exist in the newer Edit, but both happened (tho rarely) in the old version.

Besides the bugs, Edit seems very slow.  How can it take longer to save
a file from Edit than to compile it (Megamax C)?  Alas, there doesn't yet
seem to be anything else for the Mac that is at all suitable for program
editing.

Paul Perkins

This is all just my opinion, of course.

Oh yeah, I got the Jan-85 version off Compuserve, if anyone was wondering.

mike@smu (07/30/85)

Megamax will be shipping a much better editor with release 2.1.  It
has many advantages over the old Edit thing, not the least of which is
its size: almost 20K less if I recall.

Mike McNally		SMU
mike@smu
...convex!smu!mike

bill@crystal.UUCP (08/05/85)

> [I can't believe this bug is still around]
> 
> This is a followup to an article about 'Edit', Apple's public-domain
> editor which comes with MDS, Aztec C, and presumably several other
> programming languages.  I have been using Edit heavily for the past few
> months as part of my Aztec-C system, on a 128K Mac  ...
> I have been greatly inconvenienced by its bugs.  Many
> times Edit has pretended to save a file when actually it doesn't, so
> when I reopen the file I have lost all my changes.  Edit has also been
> known to munge, chew up, and generally destroy files to an extent that I
> always have to keep backups of everything and never know when I'm going
> to lose data.  Also, it seems to be lacking in error checks for low
> memory, because I can easily crash the system by opening too many
> windows, keeping a large file in memory, changing the font on a large
> file, etc. In general, Edit has been a source of much grief for me.  I

I have also had problems with Edit.  PLEASE MENTION VERSION WHEN YOU POST
AN ARTICLE ! ! !  I have three versions so far:  10/24/84, 12/12/84, and
1/15/85 (which came with the new Aztec C update last week).  the 12/12
version cost me 40 lines of editing (even though I back up regularly, I quit
by doing "Save", which did a REVERT, and it was too late...).

I sure hope a certain C compiler written by the same guy has been debugged
a little better...

Any other known bugs?
Anybody have a more recent version than 1/15/85?
Please mail me, and I'll summarize.
Is there a more current version with the CompuServe Supplement?

	bill

	William Cox
	Computer Sciences Department
	University of Wisconsin, Madison WI
	bill@uwisc
	...{ihnp4,seismo,allegra}!uwvax!bill
-- 
	William Cox
	Computer Sciences Department
	University of Wisconsin, Madison WI
	bill@uwisc
	...{ihnp4,seismo,allegra}!uwvax!bill