cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (05/16/88)
In article <8805140029.AA03459@jade.berkeley.edu> SLMYQ@USU.BITNET writes: >Glad to hear it. However, as I hear, AREXX is commercial. We need >a PD version... **** Pull control Rods, NUCLEAR BURNER START ... Why the HELL is it so damn difficult to make a living supporting this machine?!!!! Look, AREXX is $50, a mere pittance even to a god damn college student. Wake up and smell the coffee, if you want well thought out, maintained, supported tools that do good things then for god sake pay for them! This entire mindset that "oh everything I want for this machine should be free." is self defeating. Sure it is wonderful when someone takes easily several thousand dollars worth of their time and 'donates' it to the BBS crowd, but no one can do that forever, and the level of sophistication in *ANY* public domain program is inversely proportional to its reliability. You can buy a damn nice C compiler that works reliably, or you can port the thing Small C has turned into and because *hundreds* of weekend hackers have pissed on it, is about as reliable as Helsinki formula. I was asked the other day what I had "done" for the Amiga. The real question was "What PD program bears your name?" And my answer is "Nothing that matters." Because I don't have the time to give away, sorry. It may sound crass but I make my living writing code, by people who understand it's value. And yet people who don't write programs have this feeling that it must not be very difficult, after all everything they use is 'free.' And these same people bitch and moan that no one has written a public domain lotus 1-2-3 clone (and often pirate legal copies because they believe that Lotus corp must be ripping them off since 'vc' is free). Think about it for a minute would you? IPC is not a simple problem, I deal with it everyday in my job, neither are Macro languages. There is a good 5 - 10 programmer years worth of work to be done here and no one wants to do it for free, can you blame them? Sure the people arguing about it may reach a consensus and have something to play with by the end of the year, and then again they may not. Why don't *YOU* stop whatever you are doing and write all the code and tools that are needed. I think we have a pretty good handle on what is involved. The Amiga is going *NOWHERE* with the public domain, because it takes 10 to 100 times longer to get something done for 'free' then it does to bite the bullet and pay someone to do what needs to be done. Look at the Mac, I guaruntee you there will be both an IPC standard and code to use it on the Mac by the end of the year, and Apple will claim to have invented it. AND ALL OF THE MAC USERS WILL PAY $100 TO HAVE THAT ABILITY ON THEIR MACHINES. You may think them lemmings for doing so, but they will have it and you will still be saying "Oh the Amiga can do that, just no one has written it yet." And in another year the Amiga will be so far behind the OS/2 machines and the Mac that the computer community will consider it BACKWARD, and PRIMITIVE and A FOLLOWER. Commodore can only do so much, we have to do the rest, and if you don't fund R&D it doesn't get done, and the people most likely to get it done are the Bill Hawes' of the world who derive a living from the Amiga and are working hard to see it reach it's potential. You do no one any favors by waiting for a 'PD' version of anything. What you do is discourage development. If you can't appreciate the reality of the situation then just remember it, if you ever work as a programmer you will understand after a time. ***** All control rods inserted, NUCLEAR reaction stopped. I don't normally react so violently but there are certain realities in the world that a significant segment of the Amiga community ignores. And since we are the ones who can make or break this machine we need to understand them. Hopefully, you will have another insight into the mechanics of the 'life' of a machine, and will be better prepared to deal with it's demise when that occurs. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/17/88)
Chemotherapy time. Mac owners are sheep. Rich sheep. We're not. Now then. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that what this guy is saying is "why should I spend extra time putting a REXX port in my program? People will see it as a $50 surcharge on the program." I've paid for AREXX (Let you know when I get it), but I'd like to be able to distribute everything my customers need to run my program apart from a Workbench disk. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.
SLMYQ@USU.BITNET (05/18/88)
>>Glad to hear it. However, as I hear, AREXX is commercial. We need >>a PD version... > >**** Pull control Rods, NUCLEAR BURNER START ... I wasn't going to respond to this message on Usenet, but I see we might have some flame wars coming ahead if I don't. Basically the problem is AREXX is probably much bigger and more complex than I thought - I haven't seen it, so I couldn't say. Anyway, I had the idea that it was just another 20K utility that went commercial. If I had known it was big enough to generate a nuclear disaster, I would've kept my mouth shut. Sorry, just a misunderstanding on my part. Bryan Ford (SLMYQ@USU.BITNET)
lphillips@lpami.van-bc.UUCP (Larry Phillips) (05/18/88)
In <2005@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >Now then. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that what this guy is >saying is "why should I spend extra time putting a REXX port in my >program? People will see it as a $50 surcharge on the program." I've >paid for AREXX (Let you know when I get it), but I'd like to be able >to distribute everything my customers need to run my program apart >from a Workbench disk. Not quite. Granted, if a program _needs_ ARexx to operate at all, then it will require the purchase of ARexx. Most programs with an ARexx interface do not require ARexx to use the program. Examples are TxEd (still a perfectly functional editor) and PCLO Plus (still a perfectly functional PCB layout program). The other point of course is that the more whizzbang things that come around that need ARexx, the more likely the user is to buy it, since it becomes a $50 surcharge not on one program, but on many programs, and that does not even take into account ARexx programs themselves, which make it very easy to customize your environment with quick little scripts. Of course it would be best if CBM paid Bill for it and distributed it as part of the Amiga package. Bill deserves it, and so do the users. -larry -- Janus? Well, look at it this way. If you squint a little, the J could be Amiga checkmark, and the rest of the word describes MsDos. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ {ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (05/18/88)
In article <8805180018.AA13980@jade.berkeley.edu> SLMYQ@USU.BITNET writes: >Basically the problem is AREXX is probably much bigger and more complex >than I thought - I haven't seen it, so I couldn't say. Anyway, I had >the idea that it was just another 20K utility that went commercial. > Bryan Ford (SLMYQ@USU.BITNET) It isn't very big, but that's because it's in highly hand-optimized assembler. I believe the library is about 35K long. It has innumerable features, I believe the manual is 100+ pages long (it's at home right now). Randell Jesup {uunet|ihnp4|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) (05/19/88)
My previous posting on this didn't get an answer and so the repost: Why does a macro processor want 'ieeedoubbas.library'. My boot disks are so full that I have to scrounge around for one or two free blocks. I guess what I really need is a whole bunch of PATH commands one each for l:, libs: etc. Next, why does the 'ADDRESS COMMAND wait' look for c:wait instead of all the right places? (like sys:system) [Yes the path add occurs before rexx is installed. In fact none of the rexx commands are in c:. I prefer to keep only the commands to move to ram in c: and I don't want to assign because I want ram:c to be FIRST in the search path] Is the fault in the library [I use ARP] or in AREXX? -Nath
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/21/88)
In article ... lphillips@lpami.van-bc.UUCP (Larry Phillips) writes: > Most programs with an ARexx interface > do not require ARexx to use the program. Examples are TxEd (still a > perfectly functional editor) and PCLO Plus (still a perfectly functional > PCB layout program). On the other hand my main use of AREXX would be to handle macros and command files. One thing I need is command files. This means I have to duplicate the part of AREXX I want to use in my program anyway. ---------- I have now received AREXX and WShell, and have spent minimal time playing with it. No major surprises so far. On the down side I have been having some problems, but on the up side the documentation is extremely good, and the interface code is described in detail. o If I mount ConMan as CNC:, and NewWSH CNC:..., there is no echo from the CNC: window and editing keys don't work. This is a trifle upsetting :->, inasmuch as it negates any advantage of ConMan. o When I type in the demo program from the AREXX manual: say 'What is your age?' pull age say 'You are about ' age*365 ' days old.' It gives me a message along the lines of "Can't find Command". Is the demo non-working, or what? o AREXX won't serve for the sort of IPC I want to do. It really does strongly expect text strings as input and output, and when you pass stuff to a program (COMMAND EDIT 'insert' text) it concatenates it into a single string. No way could pointers pass unscathed, unless you convert them to hex or something, and even then you're letting yourself open for some serious trouble. This was a disappointment. There's no way Browser is going to pass file locks, window pointers, or message ports through this interface. People are already upset enough about Browser guruing them when they try to Workbench Launch a CLI application, despite repeated warnings in the documentation and program. On the other hand, it should work extremely well as a command language for Bill Barton's MIDI library. MIDI messages are perfectly good text strings. I do intend to do an AREXX midi module. o The syntax and operators of the language just feel sticky. They remind me of the less desirable aspects of BCPL and Forth. Now, it may be that I'm just not used to it, but I've done a bunch of PL/M programming (and the control structures are definitely PL/I derived), but the individual nouns are pretty weird. "say", for instance, instead of "print" or "write". "pull" instead of "read". But what can you expect from IBM? -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.