[comp.sys.mac.programmer] NEON Caveat

carlile@trwrb.UUCP (Donald E. Carlile) (03/01/88)

In article <940@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> ns@CAT.CMU.EDU (Nicholas Spies) writes:
>...
>...NEON is also a Forth-based
>object oriented language mentioned in the book "Object-Oriented Programming
>for the Mac" by Schmucker (Hayden). 

I got suckered into NEON about 3 years ago.  I don't recommend it.  I flailed
around for quite some time, and didn't really get anywhere.  I got a hold of
MacApp and coded up the same app very quickly.  And it was double clickable
without extra files to make invisible.  

I know that this topic was for beginners, and MPW and MacApp cost more than
beginners want to pay, but I wanted to steer beginners away from what looks
to me to be a dead end street.

Anyone who disagrees with me is welcome to buy my copy of NEON.

DISCLAIMER:  My opinions are my own, and are not necessarily shared by my 
employer.

Additional disclaimer:  It has been a while since I had anything to do with
NEON, and it **MAY** have improved.

Don Carlile

rfl@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (Bob Loewenstein) (03/01/88)

> I got suckered into NEON about 3 years ago.  I don't recommend it.

I can't agree with this statement.  Kriya may or may not currently support
Neon, I don't know.  If not, that is its drawback.  We received version 2.0
a year ago which runs very well on a MacII, although it did not support color
quickdraw.  Writing the interface is quite easy.  We still program in Neon as
well as MPW C.  I think an interactive environment, especially for beginners
who may wish to play with the toolkit, is very valuable.  Also, since Neon
includes all of the source files to extend the Forth-like kernel, it is
possible to add toolkit and system interfaces as needed.