phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (05/04/89)
Ceteris censeo Carthaginem esse delendum... As always, let me second the motion that NeXt should cater a bit more to the "cheap" scientific work-station market. Support of the new Weitek FLP accelerator chip, and a cheap Fortran (f77)---or even better, a cheap Fortran compatible with Gnu C---would be of value for the typical scientific user. Incidentally, a Fortran with a C-interface is required to run S (the premier statistical UNIX system). My question, however, concerns C. I am about to write a package for matrix and vector manipulation. Neither C nor Objective C are appropriate: they do not possess operator overloading and cannot automatically garbage collect. C++ seems much more appropriate. I think the GNU project also supplies a C++ compiler. (1) Has anyone used this (or any) C++ system on NeXt? (2) Are there plans to distribute this C++ with NeXt? (3) Are there plans to integrate C++ with, or C++ features into, objective C? Or, is C++ just close enough a preprocessor to suggest native-C interfacing to obj-C (i guess i am looking forward to using multiple pre-processors...) As always, answers appreciated. Ivo PS: I was just told that the order I placed for my NeXt five weeks ago (having paid $8500 to this wonderful university = loss of about $100/mo interest as a taxed donation to this university) is still ignored by NeXt. Last I heard was another three weeks. Far cry from the "expected delivery time" of <3 weeks. I wonder whether the NeXt salesman will keep his/her word this time... Has anyone gotten a machine from NeXt during the last four weeks?