From: mike@htsmm1.Las-Vegas.NV.US (Mike Haaland)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os9
Subject: Re: Wheres the BEEF?
Date: 14 Sep 92 00:59:20 PDT
Distribution: world
Organization: HyperTech Software

PaulFitch@emtwo.UUCP writes:

>  Dear Kevin,

>  This is a short note BEGGING you to stop changeing the Windio
>  drivers every couple of days. We want a stable windowing system, that
>  is NOT going to be obselete next week. We would like you to bite the
>  bullet, and ship a version of WINDIO that will not be changed for at
>  least (2) TWO months. During that time, you could accept bug reports,
>  produce REAL documentation, yet add NO new 'features'.

What are you complaining about?  If you have been programming on your MM/1,
you would understand that the same stuff that's been there from the beginning
is still there.  I don't know of any programs that were written for the early
editions of WindIO that don't work now.  Do you?  Kev has done a fantastic
job as a single (Instead of a team) programmer.  WindIO has been done long
ago.  What's the *real* motivation of your comments?

>  Bells and Whistles are nice, but lets be realistic. At this rate
>  you are never going to get this thing into a 'finished' state.

See above.

>       I am a proud MM/1 owner, but I NEED a stable platform. At this time,
>  I don't have that. I have in my possession (5) seperate versions of Windio
>  rangeing from editions 17 thru 41. I have heard talk about editions 46
>  and/or 47. Thats all fine and dandy, but this has been going on for over
>  a year now. Please stop, and ship something that we can all be reasonably
>  sure will operate properly.

Out of those 5 versions, only 3 were actually released by Kev to the general
populus of MM/1 owners.  The others were for certain developers to 'test' out
and give Kev bug reports.  They were never intended to get to 'joe user'.
The last 'release' was Ed 41, that was before the Chicago Fest.

I think I see part of your confusion.  When we say Version 41, it's the
module edition number, not really a version number.  Programmers change
the edition number of a module to tell themselves that they've made a change
to the program/module.  That allows us to keep better track of changes that
we've made to our source code.  It's not a different _release_version_.

I change the edition numbers of my stuff when I make any significant changes,
and put a comment section in my source telling me what changes I made.  Take
a look at an Ident of the c68 module.  I don't think Microware release 357
different versions.  But the module edition is 357 here.  So, edition
numbers are a way to keep track 'in house' of what you've done to a module.

>  Improvements are nice, but with untested features, and no documentation
>  to speak of, they are quickly becoming to hard to keep track of. If the
>  MM/1 is ever going to be sold to non-gurus, you're going to have to hop
>  off the 'creeping feature-itis' train.

I don't see what's wrong with adding features, since almost everything has
been backward compatible.  Tell me what programs no longer work?  If there
are Demos that don't work, they are from the very first release of windio or
were Q&D utils that were never supposed to be given out.  The only other thing
I can think of that's not backward compat is Circles changed, but they still
draw.

--
Mike Haaland

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--

In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy.