From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Distribution: world
Organization:  One of these days for sure
X-News: HERMES MMAIL 1.04 Rev. Sep  5 1992
Subject: Re: Summary of "which programming language"
	<ABADDON.92Oct12113422@suprenum.uk.ac.liverpool.scm.suprenum>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 13:19:10 -0700

In <ABADDON.92Oct12113422@suprenum.uk.ac.liverpool.scm.suprenum> abaddon@uk.ac.liverpool.scm.suprenum (Kevin o donovan) writes:

>With all due respect, this does not sound anything like the HiSOft I've dealt
>with. They've always offered great support via Cix (a UK BBS), their own BBS,
>and most probably via phone or mail as well, though I've never found the need
>to use either (I use the first two). Perhaps it was something in the tone of
>your letter?

    I've also had good support from HiSoft, when I can reach them, in 
terms of clarifications on things not well documented, or, in the case 
where I bought the update to Devpac 2.25 and found some new commands by 
accident, and wondered what they did, they were quite helpful in
explaining  them. 
    However, where I've found them not all that responsive, is in update
suggestions. When I was on GEnie, they were telling people who were
tired of the lack of support for Madmac, that they should move to
Devpac. When it was pointed out that Devpac lacked some features that
were hard to give up, they said they'd happily incorporate the features
into Devpac. However, whenever anyone mentioned a feature, all they got
back was an explanation that it was impossible to put into Devpac. As a
devoted Devpac user, I also got a bit tired of waiting for the Devpac 3 
update, which definately took a back seat to the Lattice 5 development.
Now that it has come out, the upgrade is more expensive than the original
Devpac 2 cost when new. Not exactly a reward for patience.
    I like Devpac 2 a lot, and would have liked to stay with HiSoft,
but  when the original author left HiSoft a while back, I think they
had problems getting anyone who could take over the package and improve
on it. They already had a 4 window editor as part of their Lattice
package, which was obviously based on the Devpac editor. It would seem, 
from my perspective, that an less expensive upgrade to a multi windowing
devpac 2 should have been out years ago. 
    On a similar note, I remember a friend looking at their basic
package when it came out, and deciding to wait for the debugger they
promised for it. Does anyone know if they ever shipped one. I have the
same feeling about Lattice 5. I would buy it tomorrow, if it had a
source debugger, but their track record on followup products is pretty
dismal. All you here when asking about the source debugger, is HiSoft
saying they're still working on it, and 4 or 5 people saying they get 
along fine without it and who needs one anyway. Well I do, which is why
I bought Pure C instead. I found the debugger helped me learn C much
more quickly  than times when I've tried with other packages.
    Like Atari, HiSoft is a company I want to support, but they seem to 
keep making it hard to do so.
-- 

 "If Rush fans were braindead, why are there so   Bruce Bufalini
 many people posting to alt.music.rush?"              PSU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st