Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!oberon!bloom-beacon!apple!tecot
From: tecot@Apple.COM (Ed Tecot)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Change in System Tools 6.0 Menu Manager behavior.
Keywords: menuWidth -> -1, PopUpMenuSelect
Message-ID: <15393@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 11 Aug 88 05:59:09 GMT
References: <9365@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <14581@apple.Apple.COM> <9549@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Reply-To: tecot@apple.com.UUCP (Ed Tecot)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 34

In article <9549@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton) writes:
>Thank you, Ed, for an honest explanation.

You're welcome.

>I asked a question in my original posting which someone at Apple may
>care to answer: How many other undocumented cases are there where the
>system modifies shared variables or variables which actually "belong"
>to the application, and not to the system?  Is Apple in the habit of
>making such behavior public when they discover it, or only where they
>get caught?  Do persons in authority at Apple frown on such behavior,
>or is it an established technique there?

It is hardly an established technique.  When these sort of things happen,
they are always honest mistakes.  It is impossible for me or anyone else
for that matter to know every micron of text in the five volumes of Inside
Macintosh and simultaneously actually get any work done.  When such
discrepencies come to our attention, we do anything we can to correct it.
Of couse, the most embarrasing of these always seem to surface at the least
opportune moment (like the day after the disks appear in stores).

>I am not banging on Apple here, but the degree of complication of the
>Macintosh programmer interface seems to demand some extra degree of
>assurance that things will not change unless they are well documented,
>perhaps even beforehand.  If too many things like this happen, and
>there is too little official explanation, then programming for the
>Macintosh could become even more of a guessing game than it is now,
>hardly a cheery prospect.

This is a reasonable expectation.  But please keep in mind that we are all
human here (no guarantee of this at other computer companies :-) ) and do
occasionally make mistakes.  Please bear with us.

						_emt