bparsia@eagle.wesleyan.edu (03/19/90)
In article <1443@uc.msc.umn.edu>, ken@wj.msc.umn.edu (Ken Chin-Purcell) writes: > In article <12004@eagle.wesleyan.edu>, > bparsia@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: >> The "improvements" to THINK Pascal sound nice, >> but the upgrade price is a little steep. > > My reaction was just the opposite. For $69 I promptly > received five disks and three manuals, providing me with > a complete object programming environment. Given the > cost of good Macintosh programmers and tech writers, > packaging, advertising, support and overhead, I > think Symantec's upgrade price is very reasonable. > > \/ Ken Chin-Purcell > <> also known as ken@msc.umn.edu and (612)626-1340 > /\ Minnesota Supercomputer Center, University of Minnesota If you read the rest of my post, what I said was that the price was steep for those of us who want *some* of the new functionality (such as the Rez/DeRez resource utilities), but otherwise, I would agree with you (just from comparing the price of the TCL upgrade with purchasing MacApp). I think for the full upgrade, Symantec's price is *most* reasonable. I just wish there was a low-end (and cheap) way of getting *some* of the upgrade. After all, there have been people (reviewers and others) who have argued that Symantic needed to beef up its support for resource creation and editing, and since *they* (to my knowledge) did not create their new editors, but instead licensed it from Apple, I don't *believe* (though I could be wrong) that the cost of adding them was that steep. In summary: for the Class library, charge away. I think Symantec has a more than fair and reasonable price. For those interested in small-time experimentation and procedural programming and just learning, the price is too high. Whether Symantic cares is their own problem. I'm just pointing out that there is a market (of at least 1), and that maybe they should consider it. Bijan J. Parsia
bparsia@eagle.wesleyan.edu (03/21/90)
article <2293@husc6.harvard.edu>, siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) writes: > > THINK Pascal still supports standard Pascal, and in 3.0, we've added > some new features to help people who use standard Pascal. For example, there's > $S to help with segmentation, $N++ to help with tracing, a revised profiler, > support in LightsBug to see where in the calling routine the current routine > was called (all the way up the stack), improved importing and exporting of > MPW .O files, support for much larger source files, and various internal > bug fixes. You don't pay a penalty for the Object Pascal features, and there's > no reason you should have to. But Rich, we do. That was the point of my orginal (and subsequent posts). We *have* to pay for TCl. It's true, one does get it when one pays for it, but I, for one, don't want it (yet). But I *do* want the nifty procedural stuff you mentioned, plus the other ones mentioned in the press release. I want a THINK Pascal 3.0 lite. > > Pascal 2.0 is completely superseded by Pascal 3.0; it's not common > practice in the software industry to keep selling old versions after a new > release has been made. True, but it is common practice to have low-end and high-end (super developer, power user, I-want-every-bell-and-I'll-use-them-all-and-still-not-be-happy) products. What I object to it the writing of by Symantec of the low/mid-end, and the repositioning of THINK Pascal as super-developer fodder. That's the way I regarded THINK C. > > I might add that I use standard Pascal heavily still; the new features > are a big help. As far as I'm concerned, the world doesn't revolve around > MacApp, and there's still a place for programs which are not object-oriented. > > R. I'm glad you feel this way. However, as long as Symantec bundles (and rightfully charges for) the Object Pascal features (not the bare support in ThP 2.0, but stuff like the class library), we, as consumers, have no choice. We are stuck with buying and paying for a whole lotta functionality we might not need or want. If that's your companies strategy, okey, no problem. I'm not out to flame you. But I do think it is a mistake, and will lose some nice buyers (how many, I don't know; Symantec might have done market research and found that this is the right move for them; in that case, ignore my complaints, it's obvious that I am, in this case, a niche market). Thanks for talking. Bijan J. Parsia
siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (03/22/90)
In article <12799@eagle.wesleyan.edu> bparsia@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: >But Rich, we do. That was the point of my orginal (and subsequent posts). We >*have* to pay for TCl. It's true, one does get it when one pays for it, but I, >for one, don't want it (yet). But I *do* want the nifty procedural stuff you >mentioned, plus the other ones mentioned in the press release. I want a THINK >Pascal 3.0 lite. If you find that the upgrade we're offering doesn't suit your needs, it is fully within your rights to not purchase the upgrade, or to save your pennies until such a time as your needs require the new version. >> Pascal 2.0 is completely superseded by Pascal 3.0; it's not common >> practice in the software industry to keep selling old versions after a new >> release has been made. > >True, but it is common practice to have low-end and high-end (super developer, >power user, I-want-every-bell-and-I'll-use-them-all-and-still-not-be-happy) It is? Can you give me some examples? I'm not aware of Aldus offering a low-end PageMaker or Freehand, or Adobe offering a low-end Illustrator, or Acius offering a mini-database. It's quite true that there are low-end drawing programs or page-layout programs or databases, but they're rarely offered by the same company that makes the high-end analogs. For someone in your particular position (a college student with limited funds), you should definitely contact your school's bookstore, or whatever campus organization is responsible for selling hardware and software, and see if they carry THINK Pascal. Our educational discounts are quite competitive, and you may find that with whatever local price is being offered, it may be within your means to purchase THINK Pascal. R. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rich Siegel Staff Software Developer Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel "When someone who makes four hundred and fifty dollars an hour wants to tell you something for free, it's a good idea to listen." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bparsia@eagle.wesleyan.edu (03/22/90)
In article <2307@husc6.harvard.edu>, siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) writes: > In article <12799@eagle.wesleyan.edu> bparsia@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: > >>But Rich, we do. That was the point of my orginal (and subsequent posts). We >>*have* to pay for TCl. It's true, one does get it when one pays for it, but I, >>for one, don't want it (yet). But I *do* want the nifty procedural stuff you >>mentioned, plus the other ones mentioned in the press release. I want a THINK >>Pascal 3.0 lite. > > If you find that the upgrade we're offering doesn't suit your needs, > it is fully within your rights to not purchase the upgrade, or to save your > pennies until such a time as your needs require the new version. I agree, and have no problem with this. Buuut, I would *really* like *some* of the functionality, and the point of my bitching is that I would like to buy that some for a lesser sum. > >>> Pascal 2.0 is completely superseded by Pascal 3.0; it's not common >>> practice in the software industry to keep selling old versions after a new >>> release has been made. >> >>True, but it is common practice to have low-end and high-end (super developer, >>power user, I-want-every-bell-and-I'll-use-them-all-and-still-not-be-happy) > > It is? Can you give me some examples? I'm not aware of Aldus offering a > low-end PageMaker or Freehand, or Adobe offering a low-end Illustrator, or > Acius offering a mini-database. It's quite true that there are low-end > drawing programs or page-layout programs or databases, but they're rarely > offered by the same company that makes the high-end analogs. However about MicroSoft Word and Write (and whatever the new one will be called). Bad example, but the first one I thought of. As for Aldus, I thought the reason they were trying to aquire Silicon Beach Software (a bad idea in my opinion) was so they could offer a "low-end" page layout program (Personal Press is, I believe, the S.B. name for it). Symantec offers MacPascal :-). > > For someone in your particular position (a college student with > limited funds), you should definitely contact your school's bookstore, > or whatever campus organization is responsible for selling hardware and > software, and see if they carry THINK Pascal. Our educational discounts > are quite competitive, and you may find that with whatever local price is > being offered, it may be within your means to purchase THINK Pascal. > > R. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Rich Siegel > Staff Software Developer > Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group > Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu > UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel To tell you the truth, if I were to by a programming package I would buy ThP. I think it is a simply amazing product, and you people deserve all the kudos you get. What bothers me is that the upgrade price seems, in relation to the street price of a new package, comparable. This is without the mail-order markup (I think, I humbly confess to not have investigated it). I think that the upgrade price for *any* package should be *substantially* cheaper than its street price (which is usually comparable to the university reduced price). University discounts, as far as I know, do not apply to upgrades. Again: I am not on anyone's case (much less Symantec, who I think has great prices) for charging what their software is worth. I am a tad miffed :-) at having to buy a lot of something to do (relativly) little. Thanks for responding! Bijan J. Parsia