6600pete@hub.UUCP (12/16/89)
I seem to have involved myself in a computer war of a rather large magnitude. While it entertains me, I can't help noticing that the argument has strayed from its purpose. The original posting was from someone who thought that Mac should be more like the NeXT in various ways. It was then pointed out that the Mac WAS like the NeXT in all the ways the poster wanted. (The support was a different issue; I have yet to hear reports of NeXT customer support, good or bad.) The "discussion" (OK, I admit flaming the poor devil) then degenrated into a war between NeXT and Mac, and both sides felt obligated to -defend- their positions when really those positions should have been on different planes. The NeXT is a multi-user, multi-tasking system. It is an education workstation. The Mac is a single-user, multi-tasking microcomputer/workstation (gads, the rumored 50 MHz model to be rolled out this summer is going to mess with my head!). NeXT and Apple made marketing decisions which dictated design priorities. There weren't the same decisions, which means the machines weren't designed with the same design priorities. These priorities did involve power and price, but those issues weren't the issues we started talking about -- the issues were software design and interface. So what I'm basically saying is that this machine war is based on the premise that apples sometimes == oranges, and this simply isn't the case. If we want to have a machine war let's confine it to something reasonable, like Mac vs. PC or Mac vs Amiga or something even more petty. Otheriwse, we waste a lot of bandwidth bickering about two different beasts. And I, for one, would like out of such a futile argument. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills