raylau@dasys1.UUCP (Raymond Lau) (01/29/88)
In article <1113@hao.ucar.edu>, bill@hao.ucar.edu (Bill Roberts) writes: > Can anyone in this group make any comments about the value of V.I.P. as a > prototyping tool for writing complex applications on the Mac? I thought it > would be nice to use V.I.P. to gen up a nice "custom shell" application, use the > VIP->LSC translator to get the "shell" into the C language, and then do things > like adding PopUpMenus, custom windows, etc. Can V.I.P. and its companion > product, the VIP->LSC translator handle this type of thing? Or would I be stuck > with what VIP gives me? That is, the only thing the translator could do would > be to compile the code and improve the runtime of the "simple" application? > > Thanks in advance for any info on this... > > --Bill You're more or less stuck with the code. I've looked at the output the VIP=> LSC translator creates. It's about 95% calls to VIP's library! argh...that means ea. little thing you add in VIP is just a call to the library. Want to change the behavior of something? Guess what parameters and variables are accessed by the library routine....and rewrite that routine! (argh!) Now, if it translated to toolbox calls, it would be great.. If the library source were provided, it'd be almost bearable... But! That just isn't so....you're more or less STUCK. -- Raymond Lau GEnie: RayLau 100-04 70 Ave. CIS: 76174,2617 Forest Hills, NY 11375-5133 Delphi: RaymondLau United States of America MacNET: RayLau uucp: raylau@dasys1.UUCP (..{phri,cucard,bc-cis,mstan}!dasys1!raylau})
larryha@tekig5.TEK.COM (Larry Hattery) (01/30/88)
In article <1113@hao.ucar.edu> bill@hao.ucar.edu (Bill Roberts) writes: >Can anyone in this group make any comments about the value of V.I.P. as a >prototyping tool for writing complex applications on the Mac? I wrote up something on VIP once but I haven't been able to locate it. I used it once for a graduate course I took in which we looked at a number of different development environments. The conclusion I came to is that VIP was a nice concept but the implementation was only half cooked. There are a number of constraints placed on the use of the Mac so you couldn't use the toolbox except for the routines they provide. They only give you access to the most basic operations and when you want to do something else you're out of luck. You are not given access to the Mac data structures so there's no way to override VIP's way of doing things. In addition, the environment needs a lot more work before I'd consider using it for anything other than playing with. There are a number of common activities that are just too time consuming to perform. I do like the way it lets you do top down design with diagrams but it just falls short in its design. I guess I'd recommend it for a play toy but I don't think it's useful for anything more than that at this point. I would love to see the concept extended to a fully functional development environment, but it doesn't look like Mainstay is very commited to making that happen. -- ======> Disclaimer??? Disclaimer!!! -- I don't need no stinkin disclaimer!!! Larry Hattery larryha@tekig5@tektronix