[comp.sys.apple] Phil & Dave, where are you? All is forgiven: come home!

rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) (02/13/90)

We have seen a lot of postings on netnews, and we have received a lot of
calls at APDA, requesting that Phil and Dave's Excellent CD be made
available through APDA.  Hopefully the following will answer any questions
you have about this:

Phil and Dave's Excellent CD is restricted to Apple Partners and Associates
due to the very preliminary nature of some of the materials contained on the
CD-ROM.  We want to be assured that those who receive these pre-pre-release
code samples and tools have access to Apple Developer Technical Support.
Please be assured that all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's
Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution
do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested.  Many items on Phil
and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including Macintosh
and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard
stack.  Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including
SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available
through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them.

We appreciate your interest in these products.  Our goal at APDA is still
to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution.
When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such
distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA.

Rick Fleischman
Developer Channels/APDA
Apple Computer, Inc.
e-mail: rickf@apple.com
AppleLink: FLEISCHMAN@applelink.apple.com

gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (02/13/90)

In article <6635@internal.Apple.COM>, rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) writes...

Rick says (my paraphrase):
[ Some P & D stuff is too "pre-pre-prerelease" for general distrib.  People]
[who get it should have access to DTS]
> 
>We appreciate your interest in these products.  Our goal at APDA is still
>to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution.
>When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such
>distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA.

Sounds fairly reasonable, but if the time delay is >=, say, 4-6 months, it
really would be better for us if we got the buggy versions than to get the good
versions half a year late.  By that time, the Partners/Associates will already
be on to the newest P & D disk, again 6 months ahead of "the rest of us".

If it takes only, say, 2 months delay, that's not too bad, though.

Robert


============================================================================
= gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to =
=            		         * all my opinions are *  compute"         =
=                                * mine                *  -Kraftwerk       =
============================================================================

malczews@nunki.usc.edu (Frank Malczewski) (02/13/90)

> Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD ... will be available
> through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them.
>   ...
> When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such
> distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA.
> 
> Rick Fleischman

Am I interpreting this correctly to mean that Apple's policy will be to sell
each of the items on P&D's E CD individually via APDA for the non-developers
and non-associates among us, and to make the CD available only to developers
and associates?  Or does this mean that P&D's E CD will be made available
via APDA in due time?

-- Frank Malczewski		(malczews@nunki.usc.edu)
				(fdm@wlv.imsd.contel.com)

mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) (02/14/90)

In article <8074@chaph.usc.edu> malczews@nunki.usc.edu (Frank Malczewski) writes:
>
>Am I interpreting this correctly to mean that Apple's policy will be to sell
>each of the items on P&D's E CD individually via APDA for the non-developers
>and non-associates among us, and to make the CD available only to developers
>and associates?  Or does this mean that P&D's E CD will be made available
>via APDA in due time?
>
Apple does not yet have a policy in place on this (it is being decided at
the "appropriate" levels.  You should expect to see a disc very similar
to P & D available through APDA; however, that disc will not contain everything
that the Partners and Associates get, since there are some issues with some
of the material being made available to the general public.  What Rick posted
basically pointed out that many of the things currently on P & D are also
available from APDA right now, but separately.

-- 
Mark B. Johnson                                            AppleLink: mjohnson
Developer Technical Support                         domain: mjohnson@Apple.com
Apple Computer, Inc.         UUCP:  {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson

"You gave your life to become the person you are right now.  Was it worth it?"
                                                         - Richard Bach, _One_

bjb@pyramid.com (Bruce Beare) (02/14/90)

In article <6635@internal.Apple.COM> rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) 
writes:
> From: rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman)
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
> Subject: Re: Phil & Dave, where are you?  All is forgiven: come home!
> Summary: Info about availability through APDA
> Message-ID: <6635@internal.Apple.COM>
> Date: 12 Feb 90 20:36:55 GMT
> References: <7497@tank.uchicago.edu> <7202@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> 
<38436@apple.Apple.COM> <46056@wlbr.IMSD.CONTEL.COM> 
<38493@apple.Apple.COM> <10159@hoptoad.uucp> <38555@apple.Apple.COM>
> Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
> Lines: 28
> Xref: pyramid comp.sys.apple:23177 comp.sys.mac:52414 
comp.sys.mac.programmer:12937
> 
> We have seen a lot of postings on netnews, and we have received a lot of
> calls at APDA, requesting that Phil and Dave's Excellent CD be made
> available through APDA.  Hopefully the following will answer any 
questions
> you have about this:
> 
> Phil and Dave's Excellent CD is restricted to Apple Partners and 
Associates
> due to the very preliminary nature of some of the materials contained on 
the
> CD-ROM.  We want to be assured that those who receive these 
pre-pre-release
> code samples and tools have access to Apple Developer Technical Support.
> Please be assured that all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's
> Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution
> do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested.  Many items on Phil
> and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including 
Macintosh
> and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes 
HyperCard
> stack.  Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including
> SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available
> through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them.
> 
> We appreciate your interest in these products.  Our goal at APDA is still
> to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution.
> When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such
> distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through 
APDA.
> 
> Rick Fleischman
> Developer Channels/APDA
> Apple Computer, Inc.
> e-mail: rickf@apple.com
> AppleLink: FLEISCHMAN@applelink.apple.com

This sounds like corporate bull to me. Not everyone who develops Mac code 
can afford to be a partner/associate -- or will even be accepted into the 
program. The Excellent CD DOES NOT NEED TO BE PRODUCTIZED for the APDA 
audience. 

People who would order it:
+ have a CD player
+ intend to develop code
+ understand about developer tools
+ are not your normal office automation user

By 'productizing' the pieces, APDA will
+ raise the price! Each piece will probably cost at least $20.
  The ENTIRE CD could be sold for that same $20. I'd bet that if every
  individual piece of the CD was sold on separate floppies, it would
  cost upwards of $1000 to get them all!
+ delay the distribution -- by months!
+ not distribute many of the goodies! A bunch of stuff in there will
  never be distributed by APDA -- they will decide that either there is
  a commertial product that does the job, or that the tool is not
  important enough!

This corporate PR slop about 'pre-pre-release' and 'very preliminary' 
sounds
a lot like APPLE trying to protect me from myself. Come on! The community
of people who want the CD don't need to be protected in this way!

Bruce Beare
bjb@pyramid.com
[ Coverall disclaimer: My opinions are not even my own. ]

cwilson@NISC.SRI.COM (Chan Wilson) (02/15/90)

References: <7497@tank.uchicago.edu> <7202@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <38436@apple.Apple.COM> <46056@wlbr.IMSD.CONTEL.COM> <38493@apple.Apple.COM> <10159@hoptoad.uucp> <38555@apple.Apple.COM> <6635@internal.Apple.COM> <8074@chaph.usc.edu> <38597@apple.A

sysop@pro-generic.cts.com (Matthew Montano) (02/16/90)

In-Reply-To: message from rickf@Apple.COM

> comments on how Phil & Daves CD is not appropriate for APDA members, but
> rather only Partners and Associates..

EXCUSE ME?

Why should developers producing commerical software products (usually implying
high-quality bug-free products but not neccessarily) be allowed to develop
software with buggy development tools? They cannot afford the time required to
work around a buggy developement system and report the bugs to Apple. Why
can't apple rely on large installed base of "hackers"... some members of APDA
who cannot afford the Partners or Associates programs (or can't become a
member because of country of residence)... but who have a resonable amount of
leisure time and quite a bit of expertise. I would rather have the Andy
Nicholas's of this world reporting the bugs correctly to Apple on his limited
time rather than wait several months more for an Accolade product as the
Accolade employee spends months debugging Apple's software.

If the tools that are on P&D's CD and the like are not buggy, then why are
they not available to the developers of software that have made a dent into
the //gs software market... those that have impressed us that haven't come
from the major developers.. i.e the Brian Greenstone's of this world.

If the tools are buggy, rely on a large installed base of intelligent
programming gurus to correct them and report them... i.e get them to a larger
user base without charging them $600+ for the priveledge.

If the tools aren't buggy, still get them to the developer who HAS made a
difference in //gs software, because he is the one who is going to sell //gs's
by providing innovative software in a non-pressured developement environment,
void of lost-in-the-crowd environment of a large developer who actually can
afford these tools.

Maybe I am just weird..


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INET: sysop@pro-generic.cts.com

cs122aw@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Alfter) (02/17/90)

In article <10755.infoapple.net@pro-generic> sysop@pro-generic.cts.com (Matthew Montano) writes:
>Maybe I am just weird..

You're not.  Apple Marketing and APDA were weird by thinking people would spend
megabucks for development stuff when a $50 assembler has all you need to write
stuff for the II (classic IIs, anyway).  We don't have the money that the Mac
folks apparently have.  I got into APDA thinking they'd have some great deals
on nifty programming tools, but it was a grade-A letdown.  My APDA membership
expires in 12 days.  Anybody else out there going to let his membership expire?

Scott Alfter-------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet: cs122aw@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu    _/_ Apple IIe: the power to be your best!
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