Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!csvax1!omullarney
From: omullarney@cs.tcd.ie (omullarney@csvax1.cs.tcd.ie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Microsoft cuts corners, actually (they do!)
Message-ID: <9250@cs.tcd.ie>
Date: 20 Aug 88 18:23:44 GMT
References: <7988@cup.portal.com> <5832@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <9713@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <1289@thumper.bellcore.com>
Organization: Computer Science Department, Trinity College Dublin
Lines: 36

In article <1289@thumper.bellcore.com>, pff@thumper.bellcore.com (Peter Ferris) writes:
>              To say Microsoft is writes "crappy" software is a pretty hard
> statement.  On what do you base such a statement?  I want to see something
> other than "... Excel needs
> [Wooly claims deleted]
> ".  Listen to yourself!  "... I heard", "...screws up".  This is supposed to
> be a technical forum.  I'd welcome hearing your FIRST HAND experience with
> Microsoft, not "a friend told me", or "I read this somewhere".  Further, I'd
> like to know what Microsoft did or DIDN'T do to help you. 

We bought a MicroSoft Fortran compiler some time ago ($400-500) for the
(gasp - wait for it) IBM PC (no, really, I use Mac's now). We were working
on a graphics project in Alsys Ada and wanted to write an interface to
code developed in MS-Fortran. We never did - after months of working on it
and going nowhere fast, we shelved it, and got in touch with MS technical
support to see if they could help us. A very brief reply told us that the
memory model used by MS on the PC "makes assumptions about the relationship
between the styack segement register and the data segment register, it always
assumes they are the same, SS=DS". (For those unfamiliar with the PC, all
EXEcutable files deal with four segements of memory - stack, data, code and
extra, using different ones at different times if the requirements for any
climb above 64K).
Now, if that isn't cutting corners, what is? Everybody else uses all four
segements (or at least the main three) - that's what they are there for,
but good old MS follow their usual line in plain old fashioned bloody
mindedness in what seems to be a concerted effort to ensure that their
stuff is incompatible with everything else (apart from their own stuff).
Addmittedly, they do not guarantee that their compilers will work with
any other than those in their product line, but then again, nor do Alsys,
and their compiler does; it is well designed - no corners cut.
Cost us several months to duplicate work, but we ended up with a better 
system :-)

Now - Word: that is a lovely piece of work!

Oliver