Organization: Penn State University
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 13:33:03 EST
From: <DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Programming
Distribution: world
 <mwm.2n8f@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us> <1e4r1uINN2jt@ub.d.umn.edu>
 <mwm.2njn@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us>

In article <mwm.2njn@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us>, mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us
(Mike Meyer) says:

>In <1e4r1uINN2jt@ub.d.umn.edu>, rfentima@ub.d.umn.edu (Robert Fentiman) wrote:
>> In article <mwm.2n8f@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us> mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us
>(Mike Meyer) writes:
>> >These sound like things you want to write games, or to do
>> >presentations. They also aren't unique to AMOS; any serious multimedia
>> >or presentation tool has those capabilities.  I'd be surprised if most
>> >of those aren't better for building presentations than AMOS. Guess
>> >what that leaves AMOS most suitable for?
>>
>> LOTS of stuff.  I HIGHLY doubt that multimedia or presentation tools
>> have the versatility of AMOS.  How many multimedia programs let you
>> write spreadsheets and databases.

>Most of them.

Name just one.

>Well, since I don't know anyone locally who uses AMOS, I have to ask
>on the net. You're handy. Want to mail me a copy of yours?

I'm sure you hang around people who are just as uptight and unhappy and
yourself, therefore it's no surprise you don't know someone using AMOS.

>> >Utilities can? System-friendly, AUISG-compliant utilities? The
>                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> >evidence indicates otherwise.
>>
>> Database, Spreadsheet, Video-Titler, etc...

>What utilities you can write is immaterial. Almost any multimedia tool
>can do most or all of those. What matters is the stuff you ignored; the
>stuff I underlined.

Yes, the only thing that matters is what YOU care about. If it doesn't
satisfy YOUR needs, then it MUST be junk. Again, name JUST ONE
"multimedia tool" that you refer to. Although, since you imply more
than one, I would prefer a list. I will email you a 10-line AMOS demo and
you can duplicate with this tool. (NOT)

>If AMOS is so all-fired easy, it should be *TRIVIAL* to write a
>utility (any utility; you choose it) that meets those criteria.

Well, since it isn't, I guess AMOS wasn't designed to create the
boring, slow, graphics-less, animation-less, copper-less, *AMIGA-LESS*
software you crave.

>You're wrong - I have read AMOS code. It's a modern BASIC with lots of
>gaming extensions. If that's radically wrong, let me know.

Nope, right on.

>In the meantime, are you qualified to judge *ALL* other languages?
>There are LOTS of languages that make assembler or the FORTRAN family
>(Pascal,C,Algol,etc.) look painful; they share features with the BASIC
>family. There are languages that let you do the equivalent of your
>LOADIFF example with 0 lines of code (click on insertion point; click
>on "loadimage"; use file requester to select the file; done).

How usefull is that? COme on, I could say "Want to load an IFF?
No problem, use DPaint!". Use your brain.

>> I have programmed
>> in AmigaBASIC, C, Pascal, AmigaDOS scripts, UNIX scripts, and AMOS
>> definiely IS EASY.

>Ignore the last question - if that's the limit of your experience, you
>aren't qualified to judge if AMOS is easy. Try AmigaVISION, CanDo,
>SAS, the Director, Visual Basic, enough Scheme to understand
>continuations, and SmallTalk. Then tell me that AMOS is
>"super-simple".

You're mentioning packages that don't even claim to be full-fledged
programming languages. And AMOS is easy.

>All I ask is that someone show that someone state for certain that you
>can disable the buggy AMOS behavior. That's pretty easy, isn't it.

Why would I want to disable behavior that let's me write more
interesting programs, faster? Have you ever tried to write a simple
game in 'C' (or pick any language you mentioned above...most of which
are so rudimentary that it would impossible)? It's a nightmare of
RKM calls. You can write an interesting program in AMOS without
reading -anything- but what's in the AMOS manual.

>Sorry, I *know* that all languages have advantages over others. AMOS

Perhaps you could apply that understanding?

>is pretty clearly OK for writing games. Unfortunately, it apparently
>has bugs that nobody knows how to work around, which makes it
>unsuitable for anything else. C is OK as a portable assembler; there

You call them bugs. They're side effects of the requirements of
supporting the features that AMOS supports. If you think every routine
in AMOS should be duplicated, one for games, another (where possible)
for Intution-compatibility, you're asking for the impossible.

>Now, which languages have you worked with that meet those
>qualifications? None in the list you gave earlier, certainly.

Again, you seem to be blissfully unware that the popular languages
(take 'C') were not designed out of ignorance. How many langauges have
you designed? Also, how fast do you think this hypothetical language
will be? If it's slower than 'C', no-one will use it for commercial
software.

>> Do they have the same graphics, sound, and
>> animation capability with the same ease.

>I don't know, but I suspect the answer is "yes".

Then you don't know what you're talking about AT ALL.

>> To play a MOD file in amos, you type Music "<music name>".

>What? No point-and-shoot? And you call this simple?

Yes. And I'd call that comment stupid.

>> Are they limited to a compiler or an interpreted environment?

>Some yes, some no.

Really? I'm not aware of any "presentation tool" type stuff with a
compiler available. Name them.

>> Do they support CDTV?

>All of them can be used on CDTV.

I know AMigaVision can't be. CDTV is a 1MB system, and AmigaVision
won't fit.

>Yes, there are. And their professional programs *behave*
>professionally - they don't shut down intuition control, and they
>don't interfere with the operation of other programs. The
>"professional" AMOS programs I've seen don't manage that.

Style over substance seems to be a motif in your comments.
Who cares if it's junk and expensive and late to market as long as it
meets the style guide...

>Yes, I'll argue that BASIC is not good for learning programming. If
>you want, I'll even dig ou the citations that refer to BASIC as a
>childhood disease (Wirth, among others), because it gives people bad
>habits. Since AMOS has made it to the '70s in terms of language design
>(i.e. - it's a modern BASIC), we're talking about different bad
>habits. And they probably aren't wired into the language, they're
>wired into the package.

Among my engineering friends, CmpSci itself is considered a childhood
disease. :-)