Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!mcvax!ukc!cheviot!lindsay
From: lindsay@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk (Lindsay F. Marshall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Mesa is a dreadful language?
Message-ID: <2255@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 16-Jul-87 07:17:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: cheviot.2255
Posted: Thu Jul 16 07:17:56 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 11:32:33 EDT
References: <764@unc.cs.unc.edu> <1120@killer.UUCP> <1064@ur-valhalla.UUCP>
Reply-To: lindsay@cheviot (Lindsay F. Marshall)
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE17RU
Lines: 41

In article <1064@ur-valhalla.UUCP> sperry@ur-valhalla.UUCP (Bob Sperry) writes:
>As to the contention that Mesa is Pascal with a few extra whistles and
>bells, I again disagree.

I was repeating what people who'd worked on the language told me...

>I feel that a language is only a single component of the overall
>system, and it is this system which should be evaluated. In the case
>of C this system is often UNIX. In the case of Mesa, this system is
>XDE. For the personal workstation environment, I feel that XDE is a
>major improvement over UNIX. The major disadvantage of XDE is embedded
>in the first letter of the acronym. If Xerox offered XDE on the SUN, I
>believe it would supplant UNIX as the most popular operating system
>for personal workstation class machines.

XDE is a pile of junk.  I have a 6085 that runs Viewpoint and XDE.  The
only use I have for XDE is to run the Maryland bridge software so that I
can get to a usable system - UNIX.  The fundamental design behind the
system is unsound - this strange "single user" model of the world they
have just doesnt reflect the way I (or anyone else I have ever met)
works. If XDE were offered on the SUN instead of UNIX, SUN would be out
of business in a week. You can tell the system is a mess when you look
at the programming interface provided to it. The thing has obviously
grown without control and nobody has done the right thing - throw it
away and start again. You cant stop a program that's running unless
the program supports it itself (half the time trying this will crash
the system), you cant even interrupt most of the programs and the
processor is so slooooooooow that you can be stuck for 10-15 minutes
before you can get out (if it doesnt crash of course and give you some
really helpful diagnostic like 0956......) Give me Viewpoint any day!!

Lindsay




-- 
Lindsay F. Marshall
JANET: lindsay@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot  ARPA: lindsay%cheviot.newcastle@ucl-cs
PHONE: +44-91-2329233                   UUCP: !ukc!cheviot!lindsay
"How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?"