webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) (07/10/88)
In article <1095@maynard.BSW.COM>, campbell@maynard.BSW.COM (Larry Campbell) writes: < In article <173@xochitl.UUCP< bonzo@xochitl.UUCP (Matt Armstrong) writes: <... < <into his car, I (and several friends like me) cannot afford to buy even < <Turbo C, much less the (God-knows-why) standard MS-C. < < Gimme a break. You can afford to spend 1000 bucks on a computer and can't < afford 60 bucks for a compiler? People are just hard to figure some times. You would be surprised the number who can come up with a couple of thousand bucks for a car and then can't find $500 for a computer (believe it or not, many models that were quite amazing 5 years ago are now $500 and under). <<Like maybe if the binary was going to be smaller than the source(in the case <<of most TSR's). I wish you anti-binary people would make up your minds about <<whether you're mad at the size of the postings in comp.binaries or the fact <<that they aren't source so you can't port them to UNIX. < < It's not the size that bothers me about binaries, it's the secrecy. < Programs in binary form conceal their algorithms from you. They can < also contain Trojan horses. They cannot be repaired or improved. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ and even worse -- BUGS. < And they cannot be ported. Source code has none of these disadvantages. < 60 bucks for a GREAT compiler is a trivial price to pay to be able to < use, repair, and improve free software. Similarly, I don't want to see C output from Yacc, Lex, or C++ either, give it to us the way the writer wanted to see it. Just a reminder -- I still favour a binary group for people who actually handcode binaries (by the way, I haven't been able to find the toggle switches on my Sun4 anywhere -- how are you supposed to boot this thing?). ---- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber) REASON: Thought I would take a stab at moving the discussion over to news.misc (cf Followup-To: line) -- who knows, lightening might strike twice in the same place.