From: rock@lakes.trenton.sc.us (Rockerboy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Going to the metal
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 16:38:29 EST
Reply-To: rock@lakes.trenton.sc.us (Rockerboy)
Organization: Lakes Public Access

mlelstv@spckls.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes:

> Having a library per program defeats the concept of a library. Having
> different but slightly incompatible libraries with the same name defeats
> having an operating system.

The point here is that there could be an official library, with the 
possibility of others being created that people found more useful.  (I, 
for example, liked the requester.library over arp.)  Again, I believe you 
feel unreasonably threatened by diversity.  I don't intend to suggest 
that insanity should prevail, rather, that there would be several, 
perhaps three or four, popular libraries.  (Just as there are several 
assemblers and C compilers:  people have different tastes.)  Admit it, 
Mr. Van Elst, you simply cannot stomach the idea of anything which would 
allow people to create things for the Amiga without being indoctrinated 
into the conservative programmers club.  I can so little other 
explanation for such vehement opposition to anything which would 
drastically cut down on development times for newcomers.  This isn't 
politics, Mr. Van Elst, it is science, as many people in this newsgroup 
would do well to remember.

> 
> >> Look at the number of slightly incompatible MOD players out there to
> >> get an idea of the problem.
> 
> >I don't see that as a problem.  Do you play Dungeons and Dragons, Mr. Van 
> >Elst?  If so, take a look at the book tome of Magic, and look up the 
> >magic item called the 'Mirror of Simple Order'.  I believe you've been 
> >playing around with it...
> 
> I see that as a problem. Using a computer isn't metaphysics or philosophy.

I never said it was a matter of metaphysics of philosophy.  I said you 
behaved as if _you_ had looked into a Mirror of Simple Order.  It turns 
you into a boring, lifeless, totally average, conservative, uncreative 
boor.

> Finding out what program will work, will not work or even crash in what
> situation is not my first goal and I left that to the theoretic computer
> science people some years ago.

And what has this to do with the hardware.library consideration?  Nothing 
at all, I suspect.

> >By the way, I _dare_ you to post that kind of thought in audio!  It would 
> >start a war that would run for weeks!  Now, you want to see _real_ 
> >fanatics, step on someone's toes about his tracker.
> 
> >That's why you have so many mod formats.
> 
> That's simply because tracker programmers have little imagination.
> They can't look beyond their next idea.

Cheap insults now?  It has much less to do with the programmers than the 
musicians.  If you don't subscribe to c.s.a.audio, do so, and spew some 
invective on them!  They will tear your ears off and eat your heart.  
(Yup, I had the temerity to suggest that neither MED nor Protracker were 
Intuitionised, and thus, an ongoing screamfest over the 'best interface' 
seemed a bit pointless.  I was promtly handed my head...;)  )

> If you define a 'format' you make a specification and then write code
> that follows that specification. MOD programmers did go the opposite
> way by writing a new bit of code and seldomly write down what format
> is understood by the player.

That is completely rediculous.  The situation has to do with many people 
working on trackers who were not working together.  Each group 
implemented changes to add features, just like everything, even word 
processors, do.  Would you have me believe, now, that if you and I both 
took a version of program X, and added features independantly of one 
another, that, provided we were 'by the book programmmers', our projects 
would be compatable beyond their basic structure?  They would not.  The 
only alternative would be to create an IFF.  I would suggest you check 
your definitions for _format_.  I believe you are referring to a 
_standard_, not a format.