Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!earleh 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 Lines: 28 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