Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!ptsfa!hoptoad!mentat!root From: root@mentat.UUCP (doug) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Next Amiga? Message-ID: <132@mentat.UUCP> Date: Sat, 27-Dec-86 13:56:04 EST Article-I.D.: mentat.132 Posted: Sat Dec 27 13:56:04 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 27-Dec-86 23:35:44 EST References: <23186@rochester.ARPA> <12299@watnot.UUCP> <617@fmsrl7.UUCP> <2063@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Distribution: na Lines: 54 Summary: Amiga Future The question was "is Unix really all that wonderful", and Mike Meyers correctly points out that Unix documentation sucks and furthermore is based on an obsolete paradigm -- that of files and streams. But we can learn an important lesson from the ways in which Unix *is* wonderful. Note that most people still prefer doing development under Unix than under any other commonly available system. And the first thing we ask for (or write) on the Amiga are Unix development tools. In the abstract, what is good about Unix is that what it does, it does "right". Everything is just a stream of characters, and everything from system calls to utilities generically supports this (actually Unix is best at supporting streams of *lines* of printable characters) in a pretty modular way. This made it so much easier to get things done that a lot of people wrote programs for it in the early Bell Labs days, which would have been too annoying to develop otherwise. It is no coincidence that Unix has the development tools programmers want...it is a direct result of the ease of assembling standard parts, just like in Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line. Interchangeable standard off-the-shelf parts are really the only thing that made automobiles accessible and affordable; same thing with Winchester rifles earlier. And this is what makes Unix great. So any future systems/applications we do should similarly operate on a generic model. The IFF standard for the Amiga is a good example of how useful it is to have everyone speaking the same language. Unfortunately we lack some flexibility...I'm told that on the Mac, you can cut and paste gadgets as generically as text, for example. And isn't it too bad that, icon/workbench flames aside, icons and executables are not part of that generic IFF model. What you really want is to be able to design a program that deals with anything easily. Why do we need an icon editor when we've already got a paint program? Because of this lack of unity between icons and IFF. Ideally icons would be part of the IFF standard, instead of just including a reference to an IFF picture. Why should it be impossible to have digitized sound played when you click an icon? Or to see a closed-loop animation when you click? Why can't you "pipe" an image through a filter before it hits the screen, then redirect it to the printer? (This last could be emulated by a special purpose program, of course, but note that such services are not generically available.) In summary, this is not about Unix wars or Workbench flames; it's about a neat little machine with a lot of potential which is as yet unrealized. Fortunately, the Amiga has (I think and I hope) what we need to build a good modular system. Along with IFF, it also has virtual device drivers, which helps. For examples of what you get from highly developed modularity, look at Smalltalk's objects and messages, look at Hypertext, look at Unix shell scripts using dozens of utilities to massage text. I believe that this kind of approach is necessary to really make the Amiga shine. Otherwise it'll go down in history as just yet another machine with yet another operating system, and that would be a real shame. Doug Merritt hoptoad!mentat!doug, pesnta!mentat!doug, ucbvax!unisoft!certes!mentat!doug