Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!truel
From: truel@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bob Truel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Real Multifinder (was Re: Hey Apple Mac engineers, answer->Ma)
Summary: multifinder wary programs cause of software bloat?
Message-ID: <24626@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 15 Aug 89 05:32:50 GMT
References: <46100321@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <1989Aug15.001507.14552@sj.ate.slb.com>
Reply-To: truel@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bob Truel)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 40

In article <1989Aug15.001507.14552@> enk@slcs.slb.com (Edan Kabatchnik) writes:
>
>     The Macintosh is not a true multitasking system from the perspective of a
>programmer, not the user: a programmer wishing to write a "multitasking"
>application under Macintosh OS must take great care to write his program
>carefully.  On a UNIX system, the programmer simply has an easier time writing
>a such a program.  The user, however, can observe the effects of multitasking
>under Macintosh OS just as easily as he can under UNIX: if the programmer who
>wrote the applications he or she is using spent the time to develop them
>properly, the user is rewarded with the benefit of multitasking.  The problem
>is that every application you use must be written properly in order for the
>whole system to multitask properly.
>
I haven't programmed much on the macintosh, and certainly have not
done any applications (didn't used to have enough memory :), so can someone
who is knowledgeable give a rough estimate as to the size of code that must
be included in every program in order to make it multifinder friendly, and 
the time it takes to produce this code (say for the first time, for a fairly
competant programmer).  Is this enough justification for apple to provide 
an inherently multiprocessing system?  People keep saying that it is the
programmer who is at fault, however it is the consumer that pays.

UNIX and its associated ideas have been around for 20 years now, I
would think that some of the better ideas could be scavenged for _The 
Complete System Rewrite_ that has been promised for 8.0.  I look at graceful
multiprogramming as just another human engineering guideline that should be
followed.  Isn't the job of any operating system and especially the Mac
toolbox to make programming easier and consistent?

It is time for the main event loop to be done away with.

Robert N. Truel			"Life sucks, of course, but it didn't have
				 to suck quite like this" -- RJSJR
truel@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
truelr@iubacs.BITNET
-- 
Robert N. Truel			"Life sucks, of course, but it didn't have
				 to suck quite like this" -- RJSJR
truel@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
truelr@iubacs.BITNET