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