[comp.sys.mac.programmer] RWatcher

jln@accuvax.nwu.edu (John Norstad) (03/25/89)

Many people have asked me if and when I'll be updating RWatcher to catch 
the new viruses (as configured RWatcher only catches Scores and nVIR).  
I thought I'd take this opportunity to reply. Until recently I planned to
update it, but now I DONT'T plan to update it!

I originally wrote RWatcher for those non-MPW programmers who refuse to use 
Vaccine because of its constant complaints about the creation of CODE resources.  
Vaccine's checks are much stronger than RWatcher's, so I've always recommended 
Vaccine for everybody else.  Now there's a new INIT/cdev called GateKeeper, 
by Chris Johnson, that has even stronger checks than Vaccine's, and can be 
configured to grant "exemptions" to individual programs.  So I now recommend 
that programmers who won't use Vaccine get GateKeeper and configure it to make 
their development tools exempt.
 
So as far as I'm concerned RWatcher is defunct - it served its purpose for a
brief period of time, but now there's a better tool.

John Norstad
Academic Computing and Network Services
Northwestern University

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