jnh@ecemwl.ncsu.edu (Joseph N. Hall) (08/25/89)
I got my THINK C 4.0 upgrade yesterday, after a wait of about 10 days, and now have about 10 hours' experience with it ... My favorite editor glitch is gone -- you can now use the horizontal arrow keys to move beyond the end of a line to the beginning (or end) of another one. Sheesh! This might just be my favorite feature. :-) All in all, I would describe the class library as a very elegant hack (but a hack nonetheless). I'm convinced that C++ and the C++-like (gruesome combination of characters, eh?) object-oriented environments aren't the ideal (I think Smalltalk is), but obviously just a little bit enables you to go a long way. To wit, with the Think Class Library, we now have a fast, inexpensive expandable application for the masses. I like it. All in all, not a bad deal. Symantec announced 4.0 pretty suddenly, gave a shipping date only a couple of weeks in advance, and then (get this) SHIPPED A MAJOR NEW PRODUCT ON TIME. Not only that, the stuff seems to work. On the other hand, we have MPW C++ ... I can hardly imagine how slooowly MPW C will compile with combined with cfront, but I think we can all be assured that this won't be much of an environment for rapid prototyping. (Why not wait a year or so for Objectworks for C++ on the Mac from ParcPlace?) Earlier this year we were hearing dates like "this summer" for the general beta release. The current dates are hardly so optimistic. Neither have we heard a price. I can't even venture a guess ... I suppose it's safe to say that C++ will cost between $50 more than "C" and less than $2000 total, but ... The THINK C 4.0 "surprise" was a very pleasant one, and I now have few reasons to work in MPW. First impressions on 4.0: * Documentation is good. I have found a couple of minor errors in the class library documentation. After I've looked at it some more I'll probably send RS a list ... * Compilation speed and project size, with the class library, are not the best. I'm glad that I have a 15ms LaCie drive and plenty of cache RAM on my Mac Plus. Maybe some judicious precompiling will speed things up a little. It would be nice, though, if there were a "system project" that held the compiled libraries and classes so that they wouldn't be replicated through each project. I suppose speed considerations prohibit this, though. * The class architecture is good. (I'd say it was great, fabulous, terrific, etc., but I'll wait a few months and see if some intractable bugaboo appears before I voice any final conclusions.) In particular I think that the Bartender and the "command" concepts work very well. * Thanks for the windoid and the tear-off menu source! Now, all we need is a functional PEdit class (or something similar). I'm not sure I want to go to the trouble of reworking my copy of CAPPS', but I'm considering it ... Hats off to Mike Kahl and his employer and coworkers for a timely, very functional, USEFUL product. v v sssss|| joseph hall || 4116 Brewster Drive v v s s || jnh@ecemwl.ncsu.edu (Internet) || Raleigh, NC 27606 v sss || SP Software/CAD Tool Developer, Mac Hacker and Keyboardist -----------|| Disclaimer: NCSU may not share my views, but is welcome to.