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From: sean@ukma.ms.uky.csnet (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Pattern Matching & documentation, & flame to C-A
Message-ID: <5398@ukma.ms.uky.csnet>
Date: Tue, 23-Dec-86 21:47:10 EST
Article-I.D.: ukma.5398
Posted: Tue Dec 23 21:47:10 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Dec-86 18:52:39 EST
Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 39



In article <1393@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> tim@tomcat.UUCP (Tim Kay) writes:
>C-A could publish the source code....

I've seen the developer's manuals.  I've seen the Addison Wesley publications.
I've seen just about everything else on AmigaDOS and everything else (and I
don't even own an Amiga yet :-) ).  It's a *miracle* that anyone has gotten
anything to work.  If someone shoved the documentation at me and said "write
me a device driver", I think I'd cry.  It is the worst, most disorganized
documentation that I have ever seen.  It's so bad that one really *does*
need the source code to figure out what the hell is going on.

Don't get me wrong.  I think the Amiga is the best thing since sliced bread,
but C-A really needs to hire some real documentation writers and produce some
good, well ordered, well exampled manuals on the internals of the dos and
hardware.  One of the reasons software appeared so quickly for the IBM PC is
that IBM offered a decent set of manuals.  It appears that C-A is waiting
for a third party to do just that.  I really think this is wrong, and unfair
to the people that buy their machines and software.  It's also just plain
bad business, as IBM will tell ya.

To the C-A people on the net: please don't take this personally.  I'm not
blaming you.  It would be kind of nice if you hinted to the people upstairs
that the Amiga developers would be willing to pay for some good documentation.

At least the situation is not as bad as it is with the Atari ST.  From what
I've seen, there are some hackers that know more about the thing than the
people that designed it.

Sean

BTW:
	BCPL???!!  Why in God's name BCPL?  What's wrong with C?

-- 
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Sean Casey      UUCP:  cbosgd!ukma!sean           CSNET:  sean@ms.uky.csnet
		ARPA:  ukma!sean@anl-mcs.arpa    BITNET:  sean@UKMA.BITNET