kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov (christopher kushmerick) (12/07/90)
I recently inhstalled turbo 6.0. I have a few comments and then a question. 1) It seems to need to do a fair amount of swapping of some sort to disk. I am not sure what it is swapping or why, but when I call up the options menu, as I down-arow through the choices, the disk starts up and the controls pause. Perhaps this is because I only have 640K ram. 2) The user interface is different, notably in that it is now mouseified, with the overhead that involves. I never use a mouse, so I can not comment on the ease of use, but presumably people at Borland know what works and what doesnt. But as with anything new, cranks like me like to complain. I find the options a little less intuitive than the old. Question: Has anyone been able to select a color set that works with a laptop lcd screen? I have selected the LCD colorset from the startup menu, but no matter how I adjust my screen, there is always something that I can not read. I can not make any sense out of the color set up menu stuff under options.environment. - color. -- Chris Kushmerick kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov <===Try this one first kushmerick@pofvax.sunysb.edu
rind@popvax.uucp (747707@d.rind) (12/09/90)
In article <2354@bnlux0.bnl.gov> kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov (christopher kushmerick) writes: > The user interface is different, notably in that it is now mouseified, >with the overhead that involves. I never use a mouse, so I can not comment on >the ease of use, but presumably people at Borland know what works and what >doesnt. But as with anything new, cranks like me like to complain. I find the >options a little less intuitive than the old. I just installed TP 6.0 today. I, too, prefer to work without a mouse, and the new interface seems less friendly (I think for reasons unrelated to the lack of a mouse.) For instance, when you go into windows (dialog boxes, etc.) off the menu bar, you tend to pop out to the top level after you've made a change. If you select the Compile menu and change the destination from Memory to Disk (or vice-versa) you pop back into the edit window without being given a chance to select another option (such as Compile) or to see that your change actually took effect. A similar problem occurs in the Options menu where after you've altered one option you don't get a chance to change any others. The 5.x interface always seemed to do exactly what I expected from the first time I used it. I'd be interested to know what other people think.
kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov (christopher kushmerick) (12/09/90)
In article <4980@husc6.harvard.edu> rind@popvax.uucp (747707@d.rind) writes: >In article <2354@bnlux0.bnl.gov> kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov (christopher kushmerick) writes: >> The user interface is different, notably in that it is now mouseified, ... >I just installed TP 6.0 today. I, too, prefer to work without a mouse, ... >For instance, when you go into windows (dialog boxes, etc.) off the menu >bar, you tend to pop out to the top level after you've made a change. Yes, this is annoying, I wonder if this is different when you run it using the mouse. In other words, with a mouse, it is more easy to change several things in a menu with out poping back. One thing that is nice is that it allows you to load n files at once, where n is some number, maybe 9(?). Then you can switch between them with the pf6 key, or with alt m, m some number <= n. One thing I have not figured out is what happens when you open the same file more than once. I had the same file as window 3 and window 4. Then I did a make, and it did not seem to see the changes I had made in one of the windows. Presumably, it only sees changes in the window that was opened most recently. or earliest. Time to RTFM I guess. -- Chris Kushmerick kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov <===Try this one first kushmerick@pofvax.sunysb.edu
gaz@eclipse.colorado.edu (Randall Gaz) (12/12/90)
In article <4980@husc6.harvard.edu> rind@popvax.uucp (747707@d.rind) writes: >In article <2354@bnlux0.bnl.gov> kushmer@bnlux0.bnl.gov (christopher kushmerick) writes: >> The user interface is different, notably in that it is now mouseified, >>with the overhead that involves. I never use a mouse, so I can not comment on >>the ease of use, but presumably people at Borland know what works and what >>doesnt. But as with anything new, cranks like me like to complain. I find the >>options a little less intuitive than the old. > >I just installed TP 6.0 today. I, too, prefer to work without a mouse, >and the new interface seems less friendly (I think for reasons unrelated >to the lack of a mouse.) >For instance, when you go into windows (dialog boxes, etc.) off the menu >bar, you tend to pop out to the top level after you've made a change. >If you select the Compile menu and change the destination from Memory >to Disk (or vice-versa) you pop back into the edit window without being >given a chance to select another option (such as Compile) or to see that >your change actually took effect. A similar problem occurs in >the Options menu where after you've altered one option you don't get >a chance to change any others. >The 5.x interface always seemed to do exactly what I expected from the >first time I used it. I'd be interested to know what other people think. I totally agree that the interface on Turbo Pascal 6 ( and Turbo C++ ) is not very good. Other problems with it: They removed the pick list. I know that it is now multi - window, but the pick list would still be usefull. The Dialog boxes are really bad. The Tab must be used to move through the different fields, and Return always accepts. They removed a lot of the Wordstar commands. Borland should have included a slightly enchanced version of the Turbo Pascal 4-5.5 editor and the New one. I now use Qedit and the command line compilers to program. It did multiple file support right. Randall Gaz Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and not my employer's, because I do not have one.
nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) (12/13/90)
I've just finished reading an article in the latest issue of PC mag
detailing TP6.0 capabilities. This have left me a little bit
confused.
I've ordered my upgrade but I guess I will not get it before early
next year.
For one thing, it seems that Tp6.0 is pretty much alien to the
VROOMM technology: 'The heap manager returns to the style of TP 3.0,
allocating memory in chunks rounded to 8 bytes. This granularity
helps prevent heap fragmentation, but it also may cause trouble in
programs that depended on the specific behavior of the heap
manager." says Pc mag. What does 'style of TP 3.0' means ? The old
heap manager or a new one that looks like the old one ?
For another, Tp 6.0 does not produce Window's compatible code. Rather
it has a behavior that resembles that of Windows and other GUIs: event
driven.
"Turbo Vision is based on event handling, and not standard
procedural programming. All user input passes through the application's
GetEvent method, which interprets the input and generates for example
a 'Key Down' event. This event gets passed to the main application
HandleEvent method. If it can handle the event, it does so, performing
some appropriate action, if not, it passes the event to the selected
object among its *sub-objects*. The sub-object either handles the event
or passes it to its selected sub-object. There are also 'broadcast'
events that got to every object and 'message' events between objects."
Is this a style of Object-Oriented Programing or a beefed-up language ?
What is a sub-object ? What does it mean to 'broadcast' a message ?
'Broadcasting' makes sens to me in parallel environment.
When I got TP 5.0, I 'smelled' OOP. I sensed that they were readying
TP for OOP. With TP 5.5, I thought they may extend the versatility
of objects (multiple inheritance; I don't think that this is a good
idea anymore) etc. Event Driven programing ? No way !
But right now, it seems that the next step is clear: Graphical Vision
which is SAA/CUA compliant, and it programers conform to this Vision,
porting TP to OpenLook, Xwindows and even the Next system should not
face major difficulty since the GUI would have been taken care through
the Vision, which will act as the stdio library for C and C++, but
in a much more intelligent fashion.
It seems to me that the guys behind TP believe as much as we
do that they've got the best language all around and maybe
show-time is just one version away.
--Naji.
--
---------------+-------------------------------------------
| Naji Mouawad | nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu |
| University |-------------------------------------------|
| Of Waterloo | "Thank God we cannot prove He Exists." |fehr@ms.uky.edu (Robert Fehr) (12/13/90)
In article <1990Dec13.022515.16701@watmath.waterloo.edu> nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) writes: > >For another, Tp 6.0 does not produce Window's compatible code. Rather >it has a behavior that resembles that of Windows and other GUIs: event >driven. > As a point of discussion, how would Pascal interface with C? The black box that would convert Pascal format calls to C calls would still not permit Pascal to have variable numbers of parameters. Does there need to be a complete changeover on the Pascal end? -- Jeff Davis davis@keats.ca.uky.edu Where we are here, Gerrit said, is the backside of nowhere....
dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) (12/13/90)
My thoughts on the new IDE: I use TP on two different machines: an 8 Mhz 8086 with a monochrome screen, and a 25 Mhz 486 with a colour VGA screen. Both have mice. On the XT clone, the IDE is slow and ugly. I much prefer to use TPE, the free editor from Turbopower. It has multiple windows too, and a smarter way to cut and paste - there's no difference between doing it within a window and doing it between windows. It's slower at compiling (because it has to swap out and load TPC), but it can compile bigger programs and run them too. On the 486, I like the IDE. The difference in speed is much less noticeable there, and the IDE looks really nice in colour. The dialog boxes are easy to use with a mouse, and it's nice not to have to name all the files I want loaded into the windows. There's still the problem with big programs, though. On the few occasions when I've used the IDE without a mouse, I've hated it on either machine. Duncan Murdoch dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu