Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AMIX?
Message-ID: <4013@killer.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 88 04:47:03 GMT
References: <1933@sugar.UUCP>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 45

in article <1933@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) says:
> In article <3991@killer.UUCP>, elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes:
>> > Another point is that UNIX is well-documented. Try to figure out just what
>> > Execute() on mi Amiga does from the manual.

Hmm. That's a DOS function. DOS is amazingly ill-documented...

>> As far as readability, usability, etc., go, I find them to be about the same.
> 
> Here's where the UNIX manuals and include files have the Amiga's beat all
> hollow:
> 
> Types.
> 
> In the AmigaDOS manuals mainly, but even in the RKMs, you can't easily figure
> out what the types of everything are. You have to use the examples or the
> include files... but even there's there's WAY too much stuff overloaded on
> poor old APTR, ULONG, and USHORT. But better manuals are promised.

The documentation is far from clear (it took me a few days to figure out what
a ViewPort was, for example), but a lot of it is because AmigaDOS is a much
more complex operating system than Unix (SCREECH! BRAKES! What's that kid
saying?!). 

Actually, the difference is more conceptual in basis. Unix originally was
designed to be a very high-level operating system with a minimum of system
calls. Most Unix internals have their detail well hidden (the notable
exception is the #$%"$&% TTY driver, sgtty's and sgttyb's and termios and all
that garbage that confuses people who program both AT&T & BSD). On the Amiga,
all that detail is right out in the open. Perhaps because the final details of
the machine probably weren't known until 2 days before shipping :-). But in
the meantime, we get to deal with window structures, views, layers, ports,
nodes, messages, and all that other good stuff, often with several levels of
indirection thrice removed, and it gets confusing. 

AmigaDOS (not DOS, but the rest of the thing) is amazingly flexible because of
all that detail out in the open, but the drawback is that the documentation is
a nightmare, and poor Amiga novices like me have a horrible time bootstrapping
to their new machine. For example, I'm still having problems trying to get
text out to the ten little windows that I just opened up :-). 

--
    Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET    Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191        
    ihnp4!killer!elg                 Lafayette, LA 70509              
"Is a dream a lie that don't come true, or is it something worse?"