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Date: Sun 17-Dec-1989 10:38:39 From: jpd00964@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: What do I want to see in the Ap If you don't know what this string is about, consider yourself lucky. With the war going full force, and people getting quite close to being personal, I would like to just ask for a cease fire. Why am I asking for a cease fire? Simple, once the group starts getting personal, (and mean), a lot of useful information is lost because people get scared. On other notesfiles, I will not post a note to give new information or answer a question because there are people there just waiting to make someone look like an ass. Let's not have it here. My personal opinion on the Mac/NeXT war is simple. I own both. I program both. (Actually, my Mac hard drive is dead so I am not programming it now). Which do I like better, depends what I am doing. I definately like the programming environment of the NeXT and I like NeXTStEP (capitilized correctly? :->) I am not about to sell my Mac though. I use it to compose my MUG articles because that's what people own. I traded my Compaq for a Rottweiller because it could not compare with my Mac. I use my Mac to play games (As does my wife). I use my NeXT to write unix programs. As a Workstation, NeXT beats Mac. As a home computer for relaxing, Mac beats NeXT. As a power intensive number cruncher, Cray is goint to beat both no matter how you look at it. Michael Rutman SoftMed #include "standard disclaimer.h" A NeXT developer and an officer of the CI/CUMUG (That's a mac user group :->)
Date: Sun 20-Dec-1989 17:39:29 From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: What do I want to see in the Ap >>> - A Resource Manager, permitting (among other things) international >>> localization *without recompilation*, including all of the system >>> software > > I have never, ever understood why this is such a BIG DEAL. Users can > do their own localizations, the software company doesn't have to; SO WHAT? > The company still has to translate documentation, etc. What difference > does it make if the program has to be recompiled with new strings? > > At best, this is a minor convenience for a few users. No, you're missing the point. There is just no substitute for a resource manager + editor. Here are some of the advantages. BIG DEAL #1: WYSWYG editing & instant turnaround for foreign-language translators. There is an amazing productivity gain by taking the programmers out of this development loop. BIG DEAL #2: A General Prototyping tool for User Interface Developers. Most user interface designers are clueless about what the system is capable of doing / displaying. ResEdit teaches them immediately. BIG DEAL #3: The programmer writes ZERO custom code to handle internationalizaton. You can never "just recompile with new constants." The new software must be tested to (at least) verify the displays are correct. With resources, NO SOFTWARE BUGS ARE INTRODUCED DURING THIS PORTION OF THE DEVELOPMENT CYCLE! BIG DEAL #4: A smart system resource manager can decimate the working set, important in systems lacking virtual memory. Xerox built virtual memory into all its computer products, yet was always short. Bitmapped graphics and pictures take tons of space. The resource manager centralizes some smart memory-management algorithms. It's my guess the 128K Mac incarnation would have been PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE without the resource manager. So as you see, it's not really a big deal. It's at least FOUR BIG DEALS! I hope this gives you a feel for some of the advantages. These impressions came from working as a Xerox programmer. It's fair to say that we Xeroids were very envious of the Mac's resource manager. Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.