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From: earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Microsoft cuts corners, actually
Message-ID: <9872@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 19 Aug 88 18:05:20 GMT
References: <429@rose3.rosemount.com> <870217@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <9867@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton)
Organization: Dartmouth-Thayer Radio Astronomy Research Group
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In article <9867@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Peter.G.Merchant@dartmouth.edu 
	(Peter Merchant) writes:
>... I'm merely pointing out that most of Microsoft's software seems to
>run very nicely in small amounts of memory and this might be a feature of
>"doing weird things".

This hits the nail right on the head.  Generally, "high performance"
software on most any system has to do "weird" stuff.  With the
Macintosh, the documentation for programmers does not really specify
just how weird you can get.  Or if it does, it states things in an
ambiguous fashion.

When Apple changes things, it is very hard to determine from the
documentation whether they are merely changing a "reserved" part of
the operating system, or whether they are encroaching into areas that
actually have belonged to application programmers.  I don't know
really whose fault this is, but I sure wish there was some way to
determine when programming the Mac exactly what is and what is not
allowed.  I would like to be able to get this information from a
single source, too.  Now, you have to read Inside Macintosh and four
or five Technical Notes to find out how some things work.

I wonder if MS-DOS gives programmers and users the same problems as
Apple system software does?

Mr. Spock!  This disk is damaged!  Do you want to initialize it?

Earle R. Horton.  H.B. 8000, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755