Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!scs!spl1!lll-winken!uunet!sco!kurth
From: kurth@sco.COM (Kurt Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Another great quote from Mr. Good
Message-ID: <1045@scolex>
Date: 12 Aug 88 18:56:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: scolex.1045
References: <3308@druhi.ATT.COM> <1104@atari.UUCP> <364@bdt.UUCP> <399@clio.math.lsa.umich.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 58

In article <399@clio.math.lsa.umich.edu>, hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) writes:
> I dunno 'bout you, but personally, I feel pretty disappointed that an
> improvement wasn't made, to accomodate the bad programming practices
> of other developers. I don't want to knock the software houses writing
> software for the ST's, but really now - these are supposed to be professional
> programmers, right? They're supposed to know what they're doing, and when
> they later discover a problem with previously written code, don't they have
> a responsibility to fix it themselves?
> 
...
> somewhat disillusioned. Ah well.
Expect perfection and you will always be dissapointed.
> 

The above article reminds me of a story about IBM and Intel.
IBM released MS-Dos and used a few (software) interrupts that were
clearly documented as being reserved in the original 8086 doc.

Along comes the 286 that uses those interrupts for internal purposes
and breaks MS-Dos.  Six months later a new rev of the 286 (the one that
finally made it to market by the way) comes along that does not use those
interrupts and Dos can run unchanged.  IBM PC sales accounted for more than
50% of Intel's CPU chip sales at the time.

I for one agree with the argument that releasing a new OS that breaks
old software is a bad idea.  Theological arguments about the proper
behavior of programs always take a back seat to compatibility concerns.

I work in the software business for a successful company, and we have
historically always supported old programs no matter how much it hurts.
Compatibility is a key issue for many computer products.

Remember the original PC clone wars?  I worked for a hardware company then
that made a PC clone which they thought was "better" than the PC.  It didn't
sell at all because it wasn't exactly compatible, you had to buy a special
version of DOS for it and "Ill-behaved" programs didn't run.  Ill-behaved
programs are the rule rather than the exception, most programs that perform
really well were Ill-Behaved.  Lotus-1-2-3 is a good example.  Flight
Simulator is another (no longer considered a good performer, but it was
revolutionary at the time).

The lessons of compatibility are hard ones for engineers to learn because
they are often more concerened with "cleanliness of code" or "proper behavior".

While compatibility is not a universal truth, compatibility between OS
releases is a good thing.  Would you be willing to wait six months for
new releases of all of your software so that it would run again?
No small business would, the hacker might.  Small businesses and
non-computer-literate people are where the small computer market is.

I therefore think that Atari is doing the right thing here, a little
late perhaps, but the philosophy is right.

				- kurt
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kurt Hutchison		The Santa Cruz Operation	Software Engineer
Trumpet player, synth player, pianist, cyclist, philosopher at large
The above opinions (if any) are my own