harnyo@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (02/03/89)
I have been looking for a development toolkit for writing Microsoft Windows software. There are two of them available (as far as I know). One is the original development toolkit from Microsoft itself. The other one is called ACTOR. I am not familiar with either of them. Will somebody please comment on this ! Thanks. - Andy n.b : Do I need to get a 'C' compiler as well ?
beckman@dev386.UUCP (Zacharias Beckman) (02/07/89)
In article <7592@netnews.upenn.edu>, harnyo@grad1.cis.upenn.edu writes: > I have been looking for a development toolkit for writing > Microsoft Windows software. There are two of them available > (as far as I know). One is the original development toolkit > from Microsoft itself. The other one is called ACTOR. > > I am not familiar with either of them. Will somebody please > comment on this ! Thanks. > > n.b : Do I need to get a 'C' compiler as well ? The two kits (Actor is not really a kit, but I will refer to it that way) vary greatly. The Microsoft SDK is a traditional programming tool; it requires C (probably Microsoft C 5.1, although Lattice C is also supposed to be compatible), and development of the application is conducted by writing C programs that call the appropriate SDK functions. There are nearly 400 (approximately) function calls in the SDK, and until you learn it well, it is almost like programming in a difference language. The system is very powerful; don't expect to learn it overnight. Actor is an object oriented language which, if you are not familiar with object oriented programming, will take you a while to learn. It has a few disadvantages -- programs are large; there is a bit of a learning curve -- however, it is an excellent system which I highly recommend. On the upside, no C compiler is needed, although the Microsoft SDK would be a usefull tool to have, since Actor can call the SDK functions and make use of the SDK resource compiler. But, it is not required. To give you an idea of the power Actor makes available: for kicks, I wrote a short program that makes a cube bounce around inside a window. A mouse-click will stop the cube; another will restart it. It took 12 lines of Actor code; in C, it would have taken at least a couple pages with all the overhead. By the way, if you are a student, I believe the Whitewater Group is still offering an 80% discount to students -- which means you could get Actor for only $100. I suppose I would recommend the SDK if you are planning on writing several smaller programs, such as utilities, communication packages, or programs that must not use much memory. If you are planning larger applications, or something that borders on artificial intelligence, or research, or if you just want to have a "Really Great" language to work with, I would recommend Actor. Personally, I can't imagine living without both of them... Zacharias J. Beckman ... gatech!mdt!pgthor!dev386!beckman ... uunet!mcrware!pgthor!dev386!beckman (319) 354-5116 (319) 351-1993 Blessed are the meek for they shall inhibit the earth.
mathu@sssab.se (Mats Hultqvist) (09/25/89)
Does anyone know about the program Actor for development of Windows programs? Is it a good program for development, has it some disadvantages? Is it possible to generate C code with it? /MHulan mathu@sssab.se
patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree) (09/27/89)
In article <1989Sep25.152321.3628@sssab.se> mathu@sssab.se (Mats Hultqvist) writes: >Does anyone know about the program Actor for development of Windows programs? > Yep. Sure do. >Is it a good program for development, has it some disadvantages? > I think so. I've never tried programming in C with Windows (though I'm in the process of getting myself set up to do so). However, Actor has been very easy to use and I've not experienced any problems with memory so far. The browser is great for being able to quickly write and "compile" code (Actor produces a compiled threaded code). The other handy thing is that when you make a change to the characteristics of a Window you can see that change immediatly in the development environment and see what kind of effect your code will have on the system. If you need to know more about the product feel free to call 1-800-869-1144 and talk to one of the sales reps. They could also send you the full info package. >Is it possible to generate C code with it? > Nope. No way to do this in Actor's current incarnation. We've not quite made that a priority, but we're toying with the idea. -- "I place my faith in fools. Self confidence, my friends call it." -Edgar Allen Poe Patrick Deupree -> patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us
fender@casaba.ucsb.edu (Chen, John Yun-kuang) (10/14/89)
If you are a student, you can buy actor for the low academic price of $99. All you have to do is xerox your reg card or something like that. I bought one & I like it very much, although I haven't gotten very far because I've been very busy. Does anyone have any good example source code to look at? -- John Chen c/o Assoc. for Computing Machinery| X, emacs, bash, gnus, rmail, University of California at Santa Barbara | !vi, !suntools, !csh, !mail Santa Barbara, Ca. 93107 | WHY AREN'T YOU USING THEM?
patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree) (10/19/89)
In article <2516@hub.UUCP> fender@cornu.ucsb.edu writes: > >Does anyone have any good example source code to look at? > We have a BBS here at Whitewater that has source code on it for various things. We also have a disk with a program called PC-Project and another with a program called Chart that are sample apps written in Actor. -- "I place my faith in fools. Self confidence, my friends call it." -Edgar Allen Poe Patrick Deupree -> patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us
hadgraft@civeng.monash.edu.au (Roger Hadgraft) (10/20/89)
In article <2516@hub.UUCP>, fender@casaba.ucsb.edu (Chen, John Yun-kuang) writes: > If you are a student, you can buy actor for the low academic price of $99. > All you have to do is xerox your reg card or something like that. I bought > one & I like it very much, although I haven't gotten very far because I've > been very busy. > > Does anyone have any good example source code to look at? > I've also looked at Actor, but have been hampered by 3 problems: 1. The manual doesn't contain nearly enough full examples. That' sone of the advantages of the various books on writing Windows applications in C. 2. Even trivial applications (like Scribble in the manual) require 200k of memory on a 286. 3. Actor won't run on my 386. It says there is insufficient memory, even with 350+k of conventional memory and 2000k of EMS. Anyone else got some comments? -- Roger Hadgraft | hadgraft@civeng.monash.edu.au Lecturer in Civil Engineering | phone: +61 3 565 4983 Monash University | fax: +61 3 565 3409 Clayton, Vic. 3168. Australia. |
gyugyi@portia.Stanford.EDU (Paul Gyugyi) (01/09/90)
Being eligable for the educational discount, I just ordered a copy of ACTOR to play with. If anyone out there would like to share some hints or interesting code they've written, please mail or post. I'm planning on setting up an 'artificial world' where one process/window will display a field/village, and entities such as bunnys/foxes or people/ tanks will have there own window showing local information. The entities would communicate with the world via messages to gather information and tell the world they would like to move, eat, shoot, etc. I could modify it to be an evolution simulator, a robot combat game (with a status panel for each robot), or a remote lunar explorer simulator. What these all have in common is a bunch of windows which talk to each other. I'm hoping the OOPSness fits in well with this. Has anyone done this sort of thing? -gyug Paul Gyugyi gyugyi@portia.stanford.edu
patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree) (01/10/90)
In article <8059@portia.Stanford.EDU> gyugyi@portia.Stanford.EDU (Paul Gyugyi) writes: >Being eligable for the educational discount, I just ordered a copy of >ACTOR to play with. If anyone out there would like to share some hints >or interesting code they've written, please mail or post. Paul, We've got a BBS with some sample code/programs on it. The number is (708) 328-9442. You can get some stuff from there. Other than that, we've not really posted code to any other places. You can get the book "Object Oriented Programming Featuring Actor" written by Marty Franz and published by Scott, Foresman and Co. It's out there and has a few sample programs/ methods that you can look at. Not to mention a "textbook" oproach to object oriented programming. -- "I place my faith in fools. Self confidence, my friends call it." -Edgar Allen Poe Patrick Deupree -> patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us
bill@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (William Tsai) (07/03/90)
This had came up before, but I didn't catch any answers.
Does anybody have experience with Actor? What do you
think about it? Is it powerful enough to write general
applications? Is it stable? Please e-mail.
bill@vax1.udel.edu
--
Bill Tsai | bill@vax1.udel.EDU bill@delmarva.UUCP
University of Delaware | ..@sun.udel.EDU ffo30260@udelvm.bitnet