HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us (Mike Meyer)
Subject: Re: LISP - USE IT.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga Yarn 3.4, 1992/08/12 15:49:52
Keywords: 
Summary: 
Date: 11 Nov 92 09:14:36 PST
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica

In <BxIru5.K2r@fc.hp.com>, koren@fc.hp.com (Steve Koren) wrote:
>     simpler?  The only thing you really _need_ that isn't a list is a
>     comment, and even then, it would be trivial to define a new list
>     form called "comment" so comments could be lists too.  No irregular
>     syntax to memorize like you have in ARexx, C, etc.

Actually, some LISPs _do_ use such a construct for comments.

> Depends on the user.  I use C the most (90%), LISP next (8%), and ARexx
> last (2%).  I only use ARexx to glue things together, not to write
> programs in.  To me, ARexx's only redeeming value is that someone,
> probable while drunk (:-), picked it to use as an interprocess script
> language.  But there's nothing about that which LISP couldn't do in a
> more structured manner.

ARexx is adequate for what it was intended for, which, if you read the
designers writings, is small scripts for non-programmers. Like you, I
think a LISP would make a better replacement (especially if you teach
it to people before the algabraist programming takes hold :-). I
pretty much use it as a macro facility, for IPC, and to disassemble
text files into databases via their ARexx port. The latter will
probably be done in LISP next time around.

> > A script language for the Amiga should have lots of things users recognize
> > from the languages they normally see. If it's hard to learn, people
> 
> Do you think ARexx is a common language?  If you want something lots of
> people will understand, why not use an interpreted C as your
> interprocess scripting language?  Lots of folks would know that.  At
> least, a whole lot more than will grok ARexx.

How about good old ANSI minimal BASIC? Actually, it and C have the
same problem - their string handling sucks rocks. For C and/or Unix
hackers, Perl might be a good choice - except it very clearly follows
the Unix practice of being expert-friendly, naive-user-hostile.

	<mike
From: stuart@lorelei.ece.drexel.edu (Stuart R. Harper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: physical memory protection with MMU
Date: 10 Nov 92 15:44:21 GMT
Reply-To: heinz@edohwg.adsp.sub.org (Heinz Wrobel)
Organization: Drexel U. - CCD - E4

In article <heinz.04a3@edohwg.adsp.sub.org> heinz@edohwg.adsp.sub.org (Heinz
Wrobel) writes:
>In article <1992Oct26.162400@uni-paderborn.de> chandler@uni-paderborn.de
(Martin Grote) writes:
>>I don't think it's impossible to install such a solution, so how about
>>implementing it sometime?
>
>But how? YOu can't really use MEMF_PUBLIC as it has been misused a _lot_.
>You can't just track memory that was allocated to one task as it might be
>legally shared with other tasks and etc ...

Absolutly! I WISH we in the amiga programming community could get Commodore of
their butts and implemeting a protected/virtual memory environment. I think I
could live with the block memory/tracking scheme of the Mac or Windows if I had
the ability to track and kill aberant processes.
From: walker@twix.unx.sas.com (Doug Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: SAS/C 6.00 & ANSI & Strict and C='s includes
Date: 5 Nov 92 13:46:43 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: walker@twix.unx.sas.com


In article <1992Nov4.192404.1147@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>, mctaylor@mta.ca writes:
|> Why does my program get lots of warnings when I use ANSI and Strict for
|> the messages, not from my program but from within the C= includes. The
|> warning I am talking about is 149, something abouts structs. I would think
|> that SAS would of picked this up. I am using the uncompressed headers.
|> Not much else I can think that would effect it. So why does it do it?
|>  
|> ---------- Michael C. Taylor MCTAYLOR@mta.ca Student of Mount Allison U. ----

Read the description of the warning on page 244 of the User's Guide,
Volume 1.  (You can also hit HELP while on one of these messages in
SCMSG to get the online documentation for it.)

It is legal ANSI C to use structure tags in prototypes without 
defining the tag, like this:

   void func(struct FOO *);  /* Struct FOO is never defined */

The STRICT option warns you when you do this because sometimes
the ANSI scoping rules cause problems when you use such "incomplete"
structure tags.  The Commodore headers don't automatically
#include all the files they need to get rid of incomplete tags -
which is probably a good thing, since you don't want to #include
hundreds of include files just to get a few prototypes.  If you
want to run with the STRICT option, you will have to either make
sure that you explicitly #include the files that define the structures
before #including the <proto/...> or <clib/...> file, or you 
will have to suppress warning 149 with an IGNORE=149 option.

-- 
  *****
=*|_o_o|\\=====Doug Walker, Software Distiller====== BBS: (919)460-7430 =
 *|. o.| ||                                          1200/2400/9600 Dual
  | o  |//     For all you do, this bug's for you!
  ====== 
usenet: walker@unx.sas.com                            bix: djwalker 
Any opinions expressed are mine, not those of SAS Institute, Inc.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: csg019@cch.coventry.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-)
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Organization: Coventry University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 12:03:15 GMT

In article <1927@lysator.liu.se> marvil@lysator.liu.se (Martin Vilcans) writes:
>bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg) writes:
>
>> cs_e445@ceres (Vlod Kalicun) writes:
>>>Hmmm.. I was hoping to see some nice 3d graphic demos in 256000 colours!
>>>:-)
>
>>You will, except that this time the stuff might work on *ALL* machines instead
>>of just the one it was programmed on...
>
>No, most demo programmers can't do OS programming very well, and are
>probably too lazy to learn about it. And, as demo coders are speed freaks,
>they won't like using someone else's code, as they can't trust it's as fast
>as they could have made it (and it isn't probably, as OS code should be very
>flexible).

Whoa! Thats crap. Demo programmers use the hardware for speed only, it has
nothing to do with lazyness. Its true, we don't like using other peoples code,
because we would not be able to accomplish what we set out to do.

The fact is, what ever you can do in the OS in 4 frames using the OS, a good
demo programmer would probably do in 100 raster lines, and make it work on
any machine.



-- 
******************************************************************************
*        ///  O O   A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelligence Team) ///  *
*       ///    u    Fight, defeat and kill organized laming.           ///   *
****\\\X//****\-/********csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok ?**************** \\\X//*****
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: jamie@cdevil.unx.sas.com (James Cooper)
Subject: Re: 1.3/2.0 Includes
Originator: jamie@cdevil.unx.sas.com
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 14:10:14 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <92309.073252PAACC@CUNYVM.BITNET>, <PAACC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
> Can you use the 2.0 includes to write 1.3 programs? Without using 2.0 function
>s of course. You dont't need to buy the 1.3 includes to write 1.3 programs?

Yes.  As long as you don't access any 2.0 specific features, the 2.0
includes work fine for 1.3 programming.

-- 
---------------
Jim Cooper
(jamie@unx.sas.com)                             bix: jcooper

Any opinions expressed herein are mine (Mine, all mine!  Ha, ha, ha!),
and not necessarily those of my employer.
From: heinz@edohwg.adsp.sub.org (Heinz Wrobel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Why does EMITS complain? SCMSG bug?
Date: 6 Nov 92 23:17:31 GMT
Organization: Edotronik GmbH

Two questions concerning SAS/C 6.0:

    1. I tried to register with emits with my old 5.10B serial number (yes,
       another update ;-). emits didn't "find" it in the database. Should I
       use the new SAS6-xxxxxx number I got, instead of my old SAS-xxxxxx
       even though I didn't send in the new registration card?
       Shouldn't my "old" 5.10B serial-number have been in the database for
       some time now? I really want to avoid to call book-sales. Phone
       calls to the US are _expensive_ from germany!

    2. I can't get SCMSG to accept the AUTOEDIT option. If I turn it on in
       the options window and save the options, it's in the ENV:SC/SCMSG
       file. I quit scmsg, start it again and voila: "NoAutoEdit" is there
       again! What am I doing wrong here? Is it a known bug?


--
Heinz Wrobel, Edotronik GmbH (ECG018)
FAX +49 89 850 51 25 / TEL +49 89 850 25 20 (HOME!&VOICE, sometimes...)
From: koren@fc.hp.com (Steve Koren)
Subject: Re: sprites in 3.0?
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 14:59:29 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1.3 PL5

> Perhaps your display is overscanned? That makes sprites disappear.

Well, my mouse cursor is a sprite, and it hasn't disappeared, so I'm not
sure that is the reason.

  - steve
From: jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Is the RKM: Libraries for 2.0 available yet?
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1992 21:06:59 GMT
 <XlVVr*Og7@sks.ppc.sub.org>
Organization: is sometimes desirable

In article <XlVVr*Og7@sks.ppc.sub.org>, Stefan Scholl writes:

> In article <Bwxx06.84x@unx.sas.com>, James Cooper writes:
> 
> > You can even get the complete source code from the Libraries and Devices
> > manuals off the latest Fish disks (75? - 75?).  Check ux1.cso.uiuc.edu.
> 
> Fish 741 and 742.

Has anyone put these up for BMS yet?


                                                Jim Pritchett


UUCP:  rwsys.lonestar.org!caleb!jdp
 or    utacfd.uta.edu!rwsys!caleb!jdp
From: bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: LISP - Don't use it.
Date: 10 Nov 92 13:24:24 GMT
Organization: IDK/Frontec - System Design Group

oahvenla@snakemail.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi) writes:
> Seems like you haven't used much Lisp... 

Oh, yes. I've had more than my share... :-)

> Having all operations on numbers 2 and 3 in format (oper 2 3) means
> that your program can easily change the operator, without having to modify
> the structure of the command. 

That's not powerful at all. That's just plain silly.
Code should be written to be: A) Easy to read. B) Easy to reuse. C) Effiecient.

Code shouldn't be written with respect to how easily it can be altered to do a
completely different thing. That's not a very good purpose for your code...

> Besides, which is clearer, (+ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8) or
> "1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8"?

The latter, no doubt.
Remember we're talking end users here, not experienced programmers. *ALL* end
users know what "1+2+3" or "4/2" means, but try and ask your someone not as
deeply involved in computers (mom! :-) what "(+ 1 2 3)" means, and they'll
probably look quite stupid.

> Simplicity is the key here...

Simplicity for who? The programmer, yes. The end user, no.

> There are some big projects done in Lisp, one of the smaller is the
> newsreader I'm using right now...

I agree that TO THE EXPERIENCED USER, LISP can be a pretty powerful language
(not much more than others, though) but for beginners it's simply not a good
choice.

This discussion arised from my plead that developers programming end user
Amiga applications should use another script language rather than LISP.
I have never claimed that people programming applications *USING* LISP should
quit doing so, I merely stated that I don't think LISP is a very good script
language for end user applications.

		-- Bjorn



       ///  Bjorn Stenberg, Stockholm, Sweden         bjst@sth.frontec.se
      ///  main() { printf(&unix["\021%six\012\0"],(unix)["have"]+"fun"-0x60);}
 \\\ ///  "- Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version!"
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: visconti@gecko.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark Visconti)
Subject: Client-Server Stuff
Summary: new ami programmer has a question
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:48:49 GMT


   In client-server communications, what is the proper way under AmigaDOS
to continue processing while waiting on one or more message ports.  I know
I can just GetMsg to see if there is a message waiting in part of the
processing loop, but I assume this is the wrong way to go about doing things
(hogs cpu time).

   What should I be doing instead of GetMsg()?  An explanation or a reference
to the RKM's would be okay.

Thanks,
Mark
-------------------------
visconti@cis.ohio-state.edu



Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: robertr@odie.cs.mun.ca (Robert Randell)
Subject: Re: Matt Dillon: Where has he gone?
Organization: CS Dept., Memorial University of Newfoundland
Distribution: comp
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 16:08:59 GMT

In article <1992Nov7.164644.21559@cs.mun.ca> robertr@odie.cs.mun.ca (Robert Randell) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.075732.15766@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> yqdx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>>Hi-
>>  I sent away for the registered version of DICE about 2 months ago; about
>>the time perhaps that Matt Dillon mysteriously disappeared from this 
>>newsgroup.  Just my luck.  I have not heard anything.  Does anyone know
>>what the deal is with DICE and Dillon right now?  Thanks in advance for
>>any enlightenment on this topic.
>>
>>-Chris Bruns
>>
>>yqdx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
>>
>
>Ditto! That's exactly my problem too. I registered for my version around
>7 weeks ago and haven't heard a word. I also sent an enquiring message to
>his email address of dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US but received no response.
>
>If he has decided to stop supporting DICE, it would be nice if he would let
>people know or remove the file from the PD DICE distribution that urges
>people to register. I certainly can't afford to waste 50 U.S. dollars.
>
>Please, if anyone knows what's going on here, let me know as well.
>
>Thanks for any help.
>
>- Robert Randell 

I am happy to say that Matt Dillon is still around. I finally received a 
reply from him today stating that he would be shipping DICE shortly. 
There has been a delay because as of late, he has been up to his ears trying
to balance registrations, email and work.

So, Chris Bruns, I guess yours should be forthcoming soon as well. Also, his
email address of dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US is still valid.


- Robert Randell
From: kentd@FtCollins.NCR.com (Kent Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: AMOS SUPPORT IN USA
Date: 12 Nov 92 11:46:43 GMT
Organization: NCR Microelectronics, Ft. Collins, CO
In-reply-to: white@gtewd.mtv.gsc.gte.com's message of 11 Nov 92 17:05:03 GMT

>>>>> On 11 Nov 92 17:05:03 GMT, white@gtewd.mtv.gsc.gte.com said:


Chris> 	Anyway the reason I posted this was to tell everyone that the
Chris> latest AMIGA WORLD has a number for AMOS support in the U.S. and
Chris> a Amos BBS number.  I havent called them yet but if anyone does,
Chris> let me know what its like.

Where was it listed in the magazine? The Europress number listed at the
end of the review section was in England.
--
/**************************************************************************/
/* Kent Dalton                   * EMail: Kent.Dalton@FtCollinsCO.NCR.COM */
/* NCR Microelectronics          * Phone: (303) 223-5100 X-319            */  
/* 2001 Danfield Ct. MS470A      *   FAX: (303) 226-9556                  */
/* Fort Collins, Colorado 80525  *                                        */
/**************************************************************************/
This ASEXUAL PIG really BOILS my BLOOD...  He's so..so.....URGENT!!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: aduncan@rhea.trl.OZ.AU (Allan Duncan)
Subject: Re: cmpi.l #,d16(pc) with SAS6asm, A68K, etc
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 21:42:55 GMT

From article <1dlshuINN6f6@werple.apana.org.au>, by bytey@werple.apana.org.au (Chris Hames):
>     It seems most assemblers think cmpi.l #,d16(pc) is an invalid
> instruction when it is valid as far as I know and good old Aztec will
> pass it and Resource will disassemble.
> 
>     So are the assemblers just assuming that because most of the time the
> stuff on the right is a destination and hence cannot be pc relative or is
> it only available on 68020+ or something ?

It is not a valid addressing mode for the 68K - I haven't got the '020
book here to check on whether it became valid for it.
CMP and CMPA both support it, but I presume you know that.

Allan Duncan		ACSnet	 a.duncan@trl.oz
(+613) 253 6708		Internet a.duncan@trl.oz.au
Fax    253 6664		UUCP	 {uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz.au!a.duncan
    Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.
From: mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us (Mike Meyer)
Subject: Building a LISP (WAS: LISP - Don't use it.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga Yarn 3.4, 1992/08/12 15:49:52
Keywords: 
Summary: 
Date: 7 Nov 92 20:20:55 PST
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica

In <BxDB5t.EC9@fc.hp.com>, koren@fc.hp.com (Steve Koren) wrote:
> Mike Meyer (mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us) wrote:
> 
> > The only thing that makes
> > LISP-like languages "quick&easy to interpret" is that the syntax is
> > trivial. Almost everything else about the language makes it HARD to
> > implement. That's because the language is designed to be elegant and
> > powerful, as opposed to easy to implement or easy to use.
> 
> Ok, I'll bite.  Why do you consider LISP as hard to implement?  I've
> written a LISP interpreter to test some namespace caching techniques
> I was working on.  It is fairly complete, and faster than GNU lisp
> or X-lisp 2.0 by quite a bit in many cases.  I've also written both C
> and Pascal compilers and a Unix ksh-like script language interpreter.

Depends on what you mean by "fairly complete." If you provided a
C/Pascal level of functionality, then you're right. About all that's
left is the garbage collector, which is still simpler than a C or
Pascal parser. However, if you throw in the things I expect to find in
a LISP (lexical binding, closures, continuations, and backquotes to
name a few) then it becomes more difficult. But those are the features
designed to make LISP elegant and powerful, etc.

> In fact,
> once you get the parser done (which is very easy) LISP becomes almost
> trivial to write if you use good object oriented programming techniques,

That's sort of how I feel about conventional languages, only I'd say
"good structured programming technics". That's because the primitives
in most of them are, well, primitive. I don't have your compiler
experience, though; except for coursework, I've built "little
languages" that I can design to orthogonal and straightforward.
Building them as LISP extensions means I even get parsers for free.

> (BTW, I'm not disagreeing; just curious about why you think that.
> Everybody has their own concept of what is hard and what is easy, and
> you can't say one is "right" or "wrong", of course.  I consider
> hardware design almost impossibly hard, but its trival for lots of
> folks :-) )

I think doing a "modern" LISP is hard. That means you've got all/most
of the things I mentioned. Doing an "older" lisp - dynamic binding (a
bug), ignoring the funarg problem, and as an interpreter is pretty
trivial.  That's why they're used for "simple" macro/script languages.

BTW, XLISP is notoriously slow, and ELISP wasn't designed for speed.
Almost any of the Amiga Schemes (including XScheme) will be faster.
ARexx falls in the middle.

	<mike
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: marvil@lysator.liu.se (Martin Vilcans)
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Organization: Lysator Academic Computer Society, Linkoping University, Sweden
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 23:33:13 GMT

bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg) writes:

> cs_e445@ceres (Vlod Kalicun) writes:
>>Hmmm.. I was hoping to see some nice 3d graphic demos in 256000 colours!
>>:-)

>You will, except that this time the stuff might work on *ALL* machines instead
>of just the one it was programmed on...

No, most demo programmers can't do OS programming very well, and are
probably too lazy to learn about it. And, as demo coders are speed freaks,
they won't like using someone else's code, as they can't trust it's as fast
as they could have made it (and it isn't probably, as OS code should be very
flexible).
From: jworth@cquest.mi.org (Jeff Worth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Gadgets (window borders)
Distribution: world
X-BBS-Software: EXCELSIOR! v0.968
Date: 10 Nov 92 23:50:14 EST
Organization: Not an Organization

This may be a simple question for someone out there, I hope, but is one that I 
can see myself pondering for days. I'm writing a program that open up a window 
and has several BOOL gadgets in the windows right border.  There there and 
everything works, but the problem is that I want the gadgets to change colors 
along with the window as it is activated and de-activated.

If anyone know how to go about making the gadget color adjust, please let me 
in on it.  It's a real nice feature...

Please respond via email...

     jworth@emunix.emich.edu  or just *reply*

     Thanks..

          Jeff
From: chrisg@cbmvax.commodore.com (Chris Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:55:34 GMT
Reply-To: chrisg@cbmvax.commodore.com (Chris Green)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <1992Nov9.030429.22175@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> eeklund@nyx.cs.du.edu (Eivind Eklund) writes:
>The problem is that I want my code to run on older machines too. SO - I
>need some doc on how to find out wether the machine is running the older
>chipset etc...  What I really would like, was to know how to set the
>machine back to run in ECS mode for the duration of my demo.  And check
>wether there is an ECS compatible mode on that machine - if not to jsut
>stop the running.  Come on, CBM, a request for the docs for a function to
>check what chipset and set it back to ECS mode can't be that hard?
>(This way, things that DO hit the HW can be made to work on those machines
>it CAN work on...)

	To get some approximation of ECS mode before taking over the
hardware, call LoadView(NULL) followed by 2 WaitTOF()s.
-- 
*-------------------------------------------*---------------------------*
|Chris Green - Graphics Software Engineer   - chrisg@commodore.COM      f
|                  Commodore-Amiga          - uunet!cbmvax!chrisg       n
|My opinions are my own, and do not         - icantforgettheimpression  o
|necessarily represent those of my employer.- youmadeyouleftaholeinthe  r
|"A screaming comes across the sky..."      - backofmyhead              d
*-------------------------------------------*---------------------------*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: walker@twix.unx.sas.com (Doug Walker)
Subject: Re: Why does EMITS complain? SCMSG bug?
Originator: walker@twix.unx.sas.com
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:53:11 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1992Nov11.123945.827@tom.rz.uni-passau.de>, hessmann@unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de (Georg Hessmann) writes:
|> Two questions to the 6.1 patch:
|> First, when will it available and second (nearly more importand)
|> how will it released?
|> Will the patch be available via ftp/email or only on disk?

We are in beta test.  It will take at least another week to get
through our testing period, possibly longer if problems are found.

It will be available via ftp, and on BIX/Compuserve/Portal/Genie
as soon as it is available.  It will be freely redistributable, so
it should shortly appear on your local BBS.  We will send diskettes
to anybody who can't get it from a friend or from a BBS.

|>   hessmann@unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de		(Georg Hemann)
-- 
  *****
=*|_o_o|\\=====Doug Walker, Software Distiller====== BBS: (919)460-7430 =
 *|. o.| ||                                          1200/2400/9600 Dual
  | o  |//     For all you do, this bug's for you!
  ====== 
usenet: walker@unx.sas.com                            bix: djwalker 
Any opinions expressed are mine, not those of SAS Institute, Inc.