koster@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Ashley) (08/20/88)
I don't use ARP, nor do I know much about it. It seems like there was a question about why ARP commands are so small. This must mean, small compared to the standard c: files, such as type,copy,cd, and so on. The reason ARP commands are smaller is that they are written in 68000 and the normal commands were written in (ugggh!) compiled BCPL. I don't find anything wrong with AmigaDOS. It is easy to interface to, there are plenty of dos.library routines that are trivial to use, like Open(),Close() Read(), Write, and so on. My only complaint is those annoying BPNTRs, where you must multiply/divide by 4 to use them. I don't respect what ARP is trying to accomplish. I believe using ARP will just increase your chances of programs bombing, as it adds more code beyond the ROM, just adding more code that can fail. Moreover, non-ARP commands can be small as well. Here is a list of some of my own utilities, which are written in 68000 but do not use ARP at all. date 1168 od 1620 resident 788 stat 272 break 140 cd 376 mv 196 cp 1204 ls 1104 cat 988 TOTALS 7856 Now, date can set/display the system date, resident performs the RESIDENT command, od does an object dump of an executable/object file, break sends a control-c to a task, stat lists the DOS tasks, cd does change directory, mv does a rename (a simple no-wild card mv), cp does a copy, with wildcards and subdirectories copied intact, ls does a directory with wildcards, and cat types files with wildcards. All are RESIDENTable.