Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!gatech!prism!loligo!pepke From: pepke@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Real Multifinder Message-ID: <258@loligo.cc.fsu.edu> Date: 17 Aug 89 13:49:39 GMT References: <46100321@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <1989Aug15.001507.14552@sj.ate.slb.com> <24626@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <3576@internal.Apple.COM> <1989Aug16.175351.24310@sj.ate.slb.com> Reply-To: pepke@loligo.UUCP (Eric Pepke) Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute Lines: 50 In article <1989Aug16.175351.24310@sj.ate.slb.com> enk@slcs.slb.com (Edan Kabatchnik) writes: > Granted, (parts of) UNIX should be done away with. But, there is a >superior form to the main event loop: callbacks (found in X and Xerox >Artificial Intelligence Workstations from which the Macintosh developed its >user interface.) Instead of having to dispatch on every possible event in the >main event loop, one establishes a hook that is automatically called when an >event takes place. Paul DuBois' TransSkel works a bit like this. I used it for a couple of projects but then abandoned it because I prefer my way of doing cursor changes and menu updates. > So much code has been written for the Macintosh which works without >callbacks, making it unlikely that future versions of the system will take >advantage of callbacks. But, if Apple could figure out a way of making both >systems work, then future programmers would be spared a great deal of pain. Do you really think so? Sure, it took me a couple of weeks to figure out how to design a main loop, but that was four years ago, and I only had to do it once. I had to make small changes for MultiFinder, but they had more to do with keeping the clipboard clean than anything else. Getting a new main loop running from an old one now only takes me about 30 minutes and is by far the least of my worries. Compared to the task of designing the interface, it is a triviality. Having said that, I should also say that the Macintosh needs preemptive multitasking. It won't really affect my life very much--my Mac programs tend to have a very similar structure to my IRIS programs--but it will affect a lot of people. Specifically, there are a lot of people who need to use the Macintosh as a computer, as well as an "information appliance." Many of them are not interested in analyzing and rethinking the algorithms of 50,000-line FORTRAN numerical codes handed down from generation to generation, but they want to be able to run them in the background. In many environments, such as the one in which I work, this is a major criterion for deciding which machine to buy. Of course, the Apple folks tend not to think of themselves as competing with so-called "workstations." Then again, they have many tens of thousands of bucks from us, at least, because Macintoshes are to some degree competitive with workstations, regardless of what the marketing types say. If Apple have any sense, they will want people who can get $30,000 grants to be their friends. Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.