Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!oliveb!amdahl!dlb!ardent!rap
From: rap@ardent.UUCP (Rob Peck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: superbitmap windows & other stuff
Summary: listening to improve when possible
Message-ID: <469@ardent.UUCP>
Date: 15 Aug 88 18:04:04 GMT
References: <8808132305.AA13416@decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: Dana Computer, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 86

In article <8808132305.AA13416@decwrl.dec.com>, leibow@video.dec.com (MICHAEL LEIBOW) writes:
> 
> Comments on Peck's book:
> 	I read most of the book last night and believe that the book is
> a good introduction to Amiga programming.  It is probably in execellent way
> to go before trying to understand the RKM's.  BUT, disreguarding the book's
> good layout, There are just as many mistakes in the examples as there is
> in the RKM's.  I don't have my book next to me at the moment so I can't make
> too many specific examples, but I do remember:
>
>    [specific comments deleted]
>
> So, if you want to learn how to program the amiga, I do suggest this book
> because it is easy to read, but I suggest you be very careful when typing
> in any of the examples.  Go over the examples with a fine toothed comb beforea


Thanks for the comments, both positive and negative, Mike.

Thusfar, 10,500 copies have been sold, and a total of 7 people have
offered feedback directly to me, most of which I have already incorporated
into errata and made it into the third printing.  I am also proud to
say that the book is now available in a German translation as the
"Amiga Das Programmierbuk" from SYBEX, and the Italian and Danish
translations are in process.  Needless to say, the faster I get
corrections, the better the book will serve the needs of Amiga
programmers all over the place.  I want the book to be accurate and
useful and I can use all the help I can get.

I am going to advertise the Guide by placing an ad in the Commodore 
Magazine Amiga Buyers' Guide and offering to sell a package deal via 
mail order, containing the source/object disk that I offer through the
coupon in the back of the book, WITH the book, for the retail price of 
the book alone (plus a small amount for shipping).

The Programmers Guide was written at a time when I only had access to
Amiga C, and the book states it as such.  There is a good opportunity, 
here, Mike, to do something special for the Amiga programming community. 

If, as you were reading the book, you have marked areas that you believe could
be improved, I would be very grateful if you could either mail me your
copy of the book or produce a summary on an Amiga disk that I could add
as an errata to the programming disk, and of course your name on the
file as a significant contributor.  The examples now work fine with
Lattice 3.03 ("Amiga C") and many examples work with Manx +L, and linking
with c32.lib.  But prior to the first ad sale (expect to see the 
advertising near 10/2/88 as a packed-in-each-box-sold) I plan to rewrite 
the on-disk versions (and submit stuff as errata for the fourth printing) 
so that all examples would be fully compatible with Lattice 4 and Manx 3.6
in 16-bit int mode. 

(In fact, if there is anyone out there who already has available a version
of the book examples on disk, 'translated' for Manx 16-bit ready to go, 
it'd be worth CASH to me to get it as soon as I can).

So, if you already are pretty sure that you know areas that I should
fix, it'll probably save me a bunch of work and I would be VERY grateful
to get that feedback.   Please contact me at:  DATAPATH, P.O.Box 1828,
Los Gatos, Ca 95031-1828.

By the way, the use of "fprintf(dos_fh,"%ls","Hello, World);"
has a comment attached to it "/* amiga.lib func */".  Indeed,
the amiga.lib version of fprintf DOES accept an AmigaDOS file handle.
I SHOULD, however, add a special note as an errata to indicate
that if using linking with lc.lib first instead of amiga.lib,
you'd get a function that needed a different kind of file handle.
Better still, I should not have used fprintf at all.  But the
example, as shown, is not in error when linking amiga.lib first.
Also, though not so obvious from the position in the book
(page 343, 344, about the Amiga C compiler), I took two pages
to describe "makesimple.a" - a variation on the original makesimple
file that puts amiga.lib first in the link phase, particularly
for the examples in chapter 2.  A cross reference to those
pages would definitely be appropriate and I'll see that it
gets done.   No doubt, I'll try to get SYBEX to add pages to
the compiler chapter to handle the other compilers I now have.
Your comment pointed out a real possibility of confusion for new users
and I certainly thank you for noticing that.

Oh, and if Tom Rokiki is listening - if there is a later version of
ShowDate() available, I'd like to get it from you.  I keep forgetting 
to ask you about it when we are at BADGE.  I believe the version I have 
breaks after 199X and I plan to continue to use Amy past that date.
Thanks.

Rob Peck