HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mpython@goldman.gnu.ai.mit.edu (... and the flying circus)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy,alt.buddha.short.fat.guy
Subject: Re: Zen Buddhist NeXTers?
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:01:27 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Organization: Worcester Discordian Society, Cabal of the Unemployed
In-reply-to: rallan@gun.com's message of 22 Jul 92 15:36:56 GMT

>>>>> On 22 Jul 92 15:36:56 GMT, rallan@gun.com (Robb Aley Allan) said:

rallan> And besides: isn't it MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!  ?

erm, no... the Sacred Chao says "MU"

								jer


--
     And now...Marcel Marceau will mime 		   ************
 A man being struck about the head by a 16 ton weight     *    1 6     *
If the telephone rings today, water it	  -><-		 *   T O N S    *
 I-net: MPYTHON@gnu.ai.mit.edu |there is NO rule #6	******************
From: sanguish@digifix.com (Scott Anguish)
Subject: Re: Open letter to NextDevelopers (long)(Flamebait)
Reply-To: sanguish@digifix.com
Organization: Digital Fix Development
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 06:41:46 GMT

Jess Anderson writes
> Scott Anguish wrote:
> >And then he complains about Public Domain/Freeware authors who don't  
> >package the software they GIVE away in a way that he likes?
> 
> >Its FREE!  Quit complaining!  
> 
> God, you must be a Bush/Quayle Republican.  What a dumb-ass
> attitude.  Just because it's free is no reason for it to be
> *stupid*!
> 
	Well, the personal attack on my political stance has nothing to do 
with the topic.  Besides, I am a Canadian living in Canada.
	And thanks for saying I have a dump-ass attitude.  Again another  
personal attack.
	With the exception of the demo complaints, EVERYTHING the original  
poster complained about was directed at packaging and poor readme and  
documentation files.
	Thats not the software being stupid, thats the FREELOADING user  
complaining because he has to do a bit more work.

> >In the REAL WORLD you would have to PAY for your Internet connection,  
> >and PAY full price for your software, and PAY for your NeXT network.
> 
> Sure, and they pay *me* twice as much too, so what about
> that part?  What a whiner!
> 

	I don't mind being RESPONSIBLE for PAYING for my net access.  I am NOT  
whining about that.  I'm not whining about this period.

-- 
- Scott Anguish -
sanguish@digifix.com (NextMail)
From: ronp@jomby.cs.wisc.edu (Ron Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: NeXT at SigGraph
Summary: NeXT wasn't there.
Date: 29 Jul 92 04:23:41 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept.

I didn't see any NeXT computers at SigGraph in Chicago.  There were plenty
of SGI machines, Suns, DECStations, RS-6000s, and Macintoshes.

	Ron
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: silbar@mpx2.lampf.lanl.gov (Dick Silbar)
Subject: Re: NeXT JOINS OMG, NeXTSTEP Objects Fully OMG Conformant
Followup-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: LAMPF Data Analysis Center, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 14:06:00 GMT

In article <4466@rosie.NeXT.COM>, user_groups@next.com writes...
#FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
# ...
#"NeXT is the only platform with real OMG objects available now, way
#ahead of our arch rival Sun," said Steven P. Jobs, chairman and CEO
#of NeXT.  

Y'know, this is beginning to sound like the radio-feud between Jack
Benny and Fred Allen.

   Dick Silbar
From: frank@glocke.hotb.sub.org (Frank Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Objective C for other environments (long)
Date: 22 Jul 92 10:09:19 GMT

In article <1992Jul16.040142.16938@menudo.uh.edu> yzhao@cs.uh.edu (Yi  
Zhao) writes:
[stuff deleted]

> From my experience, people like NeXT and its development environment.  
But one
> regret I constantly hear is that it is done in Objective-C, not in C++  
or plain
> C, as if they'll have to learn another non-common language. If you told  
people
> NeXTStep was done with C++, many people would seriously consider it. But  
the
> ironical thing is that Objective-C have many advantages over C++, the  
most
> obvious one it is SO EASY to learn compared with C++, yet people are  
still
> reluctant to learn it. I worked with StepStone's Objective-C and  
ICpak201 in
> my previous job. The newly appointed manager keep on referring  
Objective-C as
> a "junk", though he did't known a damn thing about it (actuallu he  
didn't know
> a damn thing about programming, but he could shout for C++ loudly). In  
the
> voting on C++ v.s. Objective-C, one developer voted C++ simply because  
he felt
> that he did not want to learn a dying language.
I had very similar experience in my company. It is frustrating that  
programmers are that conservative. I think it is enough if the managers  
are conservative. But I think most guys talking about C++ vs. OBJ-C don't  
know the fundamental difference. I think the OBJ-C's late binding vs.  
C++'s dynamic is the real difference. Late binding is the only (easy!) way  
to do:
	1. Send an ordinary OBJ-C message to an other App even over the
	   network.
	2. Build some objects you can (easily!) use in IB to build new
	   ones.
I don't want to live without the above features (which can even easily be  
explaned to managers) but i can live without operator-overloading and  
polymorphism. But I really like to see these features in OBJ-C. 
> I really doubt that many people
> will accept NeXT's development environment withoup accepting Objective-C  
> first.
This is our problem! Try to discuss the features of C++ and OBJ-C with  
your collegia (or even your boss). Don't give up. 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern)
Subject: Re: Technicolor Wait Cursor? noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 17:30:22 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.210500.7046@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jmilhoan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Jason T Milhoan) writes:
>In article <1992Jul19.181746.22644@redbrick.com> jfr@redbrick.com (Jon Rosen) w
>rites:
>>   which when only the edges can be seen).  If you want to go blind reading
>>   9 pt type in menus, go right ahead (although those of us who have reached
>>   the ripe old age of 40++ may want to try and dodge the reading glasses
>>   for a bit longer and use something like 24 pt).  All of this is so
>>   patently obvious to me that it is amazing that anyone objects.
>>
>>   Jon Rosen
>
>So what happens if you increase the font size 300 percent?  The size of the 
>'window' will have to increase as well.  Just imagine trying to run newsgrazer 
>with  the dimensions 3 times the size.  I realize you might have been 
>overexaggerating, but scalable fonts in menus or the GUI itself can lead to 
>problems like this.

nahh...  I don't think it will be a problem.  I have all of my fonts
set at obnoxiouosly large sizes and there are no problems.

andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com
Andrew Loewenstern      | "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  If I am only for myself, who am I?" -Hillel
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern)
Subject: Re: Objective C for other environments (long)
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 12:53:44 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.063330.9585@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
>Could you or someone elaborate on how late binding helps here?  I've been 
>developing applications in C++ for 3 years, and have never really ran into 
>a situation where late binding would have simplified the programming
>that much.  
>
>The thing that scares me about late binding is how do I know that 6 months
>from now I won't send a message to an object which has no idea how to
>handle it?  Or does that never happen to anybody out there?
>
>I'd be interested to here situations and experiences from ya'all 
>where you used late binding to great effect.

If you are into writing robust code, you would use either respondsTo:
and conformsTo: to determine whether or not a particular object
responds to a certain method or conforms to a certain protocol.  Of
course, if you are a ride-the-lightning hacker then you just pray.

The uses of dynamic binding are only limited by your imagination, but
some good uses are easily loadable tools and modules, and 3.0's remote
objects where you connect up to any object 'over the wire', what class
- you probably wont know, and a generic 'proxy' object will stand in
locally for the remote object.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com
Andrew Loewenstern      | "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  If I am only for myself, who am I?" -Hillel
From: Moose@nosc.NOSC.MIL
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: NeXT to ship128MB EO's as replacements for 3.5" drives--Nice thought?
Date: 23 Jul 92 20:27:36 GMT
Reply-To: moose@moose.nosc.mil

Does anyone invision the floppy drives that ship with NeXT's to be  
replaced with128MB EO's(3.5")??  I know that the cost per MB is  
cheaper than floppies, and the drives are much faster than regular  
floppies(28ms).

I think that this would be a bold and wonderful move.  I just wish that  
some dear company would really mass market those drives.  I am  
sure that they could put one of these in every machine at a more  
affordable rate and set a new standard.  I would definitely run out and  
buy one if it were priced in the a more reasonable range. (Around $650  
would be fair.)  I have seen the inner workings, and there is not $1500  
worth of hardware there.  

The drives are really small, and are getting faster and achieving  
higher format capacities.  In the 17 Jul MacWeek, there is an add for  
a higher capacity 256 drive(not done with compression either).   
NeXT's dream to use the EO technology failed because the drives  
were too slow.  3.5" EO's could really set a new standard and  
revitalize that earlier "vision thing" NeXT started.  I wish that NeXT  
would embrace this idea and put that technology to work in the NeXT  
community.  They are creating new standards in every other facet of  
the computing environment.  Why don't they jump on this one.  Have  
users purchase a 3.5 DOS/MAC floppy as an external.  If they have  
to have that.  At $49.00/128MB's there would be a lot of happy users. 

-Anyway it is just an idea........
Moose
NeXTMail > moose@moose.nosc.mil
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman)
Subject: Re: Objective C for other environments (long)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 06:33:30 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.100919.735@glocke.hotb.sub.org>, frank@glocke.hotb.sub.org (Frank Thomas) writes:

|> C++'s dynamic is the real difference. Late binding is the only (easy!) way  
|> to do:
|> 	1. Send an ordinary OBJ-C message to an other App even over the
|> 	   network.
|> 	2. Build some objects you can (easily!) use in IB to build new
|> 	   ones.

 
Could you or someone elaborate on how late binding helps here?  I've been 
developing applications in C++ for 3 years, and have never really ran into 
a situation where late binding would have simplified the programming
that much.  

The thing that scares me about late binding is how do I know that 6 months
from now I won't send a message to an object which has no idea how to
handle it?  Or does that never happen to anybody out there?

I'd be interested to here situations and experiences from ya'all 
where you used late binding to great effect.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: sanguish@digifix.com (Scott Anguish)
Subject: Re: Open letter to NextDevelopers (long)(Flamebait)
Reply-To: sanguish@digifix.com
Organization: Digital Fix Development
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 02:57:13 GMT

Sherwood wrote:
> 	Diagram in demo mode is usable.  Not very, because you can't save, but  
> you could make a quick and dirty illustration, and cut and paste it to  
another  
> application.  If you wanted to edit it, too bad.  After a year, I had enough  
> requests from users to be able to save diagram files, to justify buying it.  
> 

Brad Nelson writes
>    I feel that if a developer gives me a demo of his program that is
> crippled to the point that it won't do ANYTHING, (like a 2 minute
> time limit) then the developer is sending me a message, loud and clear:
> 
> "I DON'T TRUST YOU!"
> 
>    Well, fine then.  Is this the message you really wanted me to
> get in trying to sell me your software?  You didn't really believe
> that two minutes was enough to send me scrambling for my checkbook,
> did you?

	OK, I went back and re-read Sherwood's message (and quoted it above).   
They USED diagram! for a year before they had enough call to actually have to  
save the designs that they would fork over the $25 for the software.

	"If you wanted to edit it, too bad"  That means they were using the  
software, but could live without one of the functions.

	Lighthouse already gives massive discounts to students and educational  
types.  Do you think its fair that they used it until they had to save, and  
then they paid for it?

	Sherwood also said that they used Stuart for a year before they decided  
it was worth paying for.  I don't know what the shareware evaluation period is  
like on Stuart, but I'm sure its not a year.  Scott Hess doesn't seem to mind  
though.  I wonder if he would feel differently if they hadn't decided to pay  
for it.

	I would be happy if I could purchase Lighthouse Design's products at  
HALF the retail price.
-- 
- Scott Anguish -
sanguish@digifix.com (NextMail)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: $$$ NeXT Developer Support $$$
From: scott@nic.gac.edu (Scott Hess)
Date: 27 Jul 92 14:52:54
Distribution: world
Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College

Another point which has just occurred to me for The Great Tech
Support Debate.

To a certain extent, it really doesn't mean much comparing the
costs for tech support from Sun, Apple, IBM, or Microsoft with
NeXT's tech support fees.  With those platforms, you have a choice.
I can take you into nearly any bookstore and find a second of
computer books for Apple, and IBM machines, and Microsoft software.
I could probably find 18 Windows development books without putting
more than ten miles on my car.  Though there aren't many Sun books
out there, there are approxiamately a billion sources of information
available (mostly on the net, but even so there are many more
sources available than for NeXT).

Meanwhile, on the NeXT, you have a single souce of information.
We've got a couple books on development - but none of them are all
that good.  We've a couple more coming out - but it remains to be
determined if they are all that good.  Though I'd rather have
Quality than Quantity, Quantity will suffice when Quality is lacking.



None of this is a gripe or anything - the tech support thing really
won't affect me, as I haven't made use of them for nearly a year.
It's just a Point.

Later,
--
scott hess <shess@ssesco.com>  <Who's now in a programming Berserker-frenzy>
12901 Upton Avenue South, #326  Burnsville, MN 55337 (612) 895-1208 Anytime!
<I want to become so famous that people buy tapes of me reading source code>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: david@postman.gr.osf.org (David George)
Subject: Re: $$$ NeXT Developer Support $$$
Organization: OSF RI Grenoble
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 12:05:46 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.163142.1466@weigele.de>, schnuffi.weigele.de!martin 

|> In Germany, the situation is even more ridiculous. NeXT Germany has apparently
|> closed down their local technical support entirely. It seems NeXT is letting  
|> down their promoters entirely.
|> 

Micheal Gobran (sp?) said that Technical Support in Germany had to be handled by the dealers (Computerwoche June/92).  Whether the dealers can provide support is another matter - still they can always 'phone up the $225 number.

David.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: sherwood@fenris.space.ualberta.ca (Sherwood Botsford)
Subject: Re: New version of EquationBuilder on archives
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 00:06:02 GMT

Ray Ghanbari writes
[Wecome news about a reasonable demo mode not repeated]

Hear! Hear!.

I like this:  2 minutes unlimited usage, but it doesn't shut down completely.   
Allows time to play with reformatting, tweeking, seeing how it handles realy  
big equations, sampling TeX input, and so on.  This is a reasonable demo  
method.

I have been in touch with Ray, and his firm has also been quite reasonable  
about setting up longer trials.  E.g. I was able to get a demo key that unlocks  
the application until the end of August, giving my users time to use this app  
in the next paper they work on.

To Developers:  If you do support a longer trial period for site  
administrators, be sure to mention this in your README.
From: alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Objective C for other environments (long)
Date: 24 Jul 92 18:43:10 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

In article <1992Jul22.100919.735@glocke.hotb.sub.org> frank@glocke.hotb.sub.org (Frank Thomas) writes:
> I think the OBJ-C's late binding vs.  C++'s dynamic is the real difference.
absolutely

> i can live without operator-overloading and  
> polymorphism. But I really like to see these features in OBJ-C. 
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

but unless you mean something different from most people that use that term.
Objective C DOES support polymorphism.  Think what happens when you send
an init message to any object.  Your code does not have to know what subclass
the receiver is or whether it has overridden init.  People can add new classes and
objects and the code that sends init still works.

-- 
-------------------------------
Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: esky@marathon.cs.ucla.edu (Eskandar Ensafi)
Subject: Re: NeXT to ship128MB EO's as replacements for 3.5" drives--Nice thought?
Reply-To: esky@marathon.cs.ucla.edu
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 17:46:46 GMT

In article <5649@nosc.NOSC.MIL> Moose@nosc.NOSC.MIL writes:
> Does anyone invision the floppy drives that ship with NeXT's to be  
> replaced with128MB EO's(3.5")??  I know that the cost per MB is  
> cheaper than floppies, and the drives are much faster than regular  
> floppies(28ms).
> 

These drives are already available -- in black cases too -- for anyone who  
might need them.  There is no reason why NeXT should manufacture their own.

As for replacing the floppies with them, it's not a good idea.  The original  
NeXT internal optical was too expensive for software distribution, even at the  
original $50/disk price.  And most software companies don't need 128 MB of  
storage (no to mention 256 MB) to distribute software -- I mean how much clip  
art, examples, etc... do you want to stuff into Illustrator, Mathematica,  
etc...?  Unless you want to distribute an entire OS, but NeXT is using CD-ROM  
for that purpose, and CD's are smaller, lighter, more durable and hold about  
600 MB!  A 128 MB device, although faster, would fail because of these same old  
reasons:

1) Expensive media -- several 1.44 MB floppies @ $0.50 each can do the job.

2) Expensive drive -- Raises the price of a NeXTstation by at least $1000.

3) File sharing & interplatform compatibility -- everyone uses floppies.

4) Demand -- not everyone needs such a high capacity removable storage device.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eskandar Ensafi   |   esky@marathon.cs.ucla.edu
 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: m@crito.Stanford.EDU (M Carling)
Subject: Re: Cube Owners -- Are we shut out from RISC Upgrades?
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 15:59:49 GMT

In article <Bs2JFJ.J5z@atherton.com> dlw@atherton.com (Remo Williams)  
writes:
> The *REAL* question is will NeXT provide a trade-in policy to migrate  
users to  
> the NRW. That means swapping a users Cube for a nicely discounted NRW  
"brick".


Don't hold your breath. What do you suppose NeXT would want to do with  
several thousand used cubes? Customers would be much better off putting an  
NRW on their desks and using their cubes as servers.

M Carling
Director, Bay Area NeXT Group
--
Bill Clinton lied to his wife. How can his country trust him?
George Bush lied to his country. How can his wife trust him?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: esky@marathon.cs.ucla.edu (Eskandar Ensafi)
Subject: Re: Define a new platform . . 
Keywords: risc cube
Reply-To: esky@marathon.cs.ucla.edu
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 18:13:21 GMT

Hi,

Things are getting confusing now.  First someone posted than the rumored NeXT  
RISC Workstation (NRW or NeXTbrick) will have a 64-bit bus with a new, smaller  
form factor.  Then someone said that it will NOT be offered as a cube upgrade.   
Many posts appeared in comp.sys.next.advocacy, and finally came some VERY  
UNOFFICIAL GOOD NEWS:

* The backplane of the cube could be upgraded to support the 64-bit bus.
* The new form-factor would either fit in the cube.
* NeXT has decided to maintain the cube shape after all.

Then came some VERY DISTURBING POSTS, something along these lines:

* The cube will be dropped or made obsolete by the new form factor.
* No RISC or backplane upgrades for cubes -- EVER!!!

And then people stopped posting articles favoring maintaining the cube and  
upgrading it to a 64-bit bus w/ a RISC CPU... What happened?  You mean no one  
cares anymore?

Come on, people, do something.  Either get at the truth about the NRW, express  
your ideas or try to save the cube from a 680x0-bound future, if it even has a  
future at all!

- Eskandar Ensafi


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: dlw@atherton.com (Remo Williams)
Subject: Re: Cube Owners -- Are we shut out from RISC Upgrades?
Organization: Atherton Technology, Inc.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:21:15 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.123113.7265@cubetech.com> andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew  
Loewenstern) writes:
> In article <92205.161455MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu> <MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
> >Of course, there are some people who are wedded to the cube for good  
reasons,
> >for example they are ND users,or have some custom board in the cube.  But
> >for most people, 1--3 will do the trick.  In fact, if you omit step 3,
> >you can network your new NRW with your cube, and have the best of both
> >worlds.
> 
> ND users wouldn't have a problem if the NRW had the ND (or the same
> type of capabilities) on board.  Very, very few poeple have boards
> other than the ND in their cubes.

The *REAL* question is will NeXT provide a trade-in policy to migrate users to  
the NRW. That means swapping a users Cube for a nicely discounted NRW "brick".

Presuming NeXT does not have a cube based NRW upgrade.

I would presume that with those scads of cubes sitting in government and  
financial services firms--the Cube will live still.

This drives at the heart of existing customer base satisfaction. This is  
something that the minicomputer vendors understand quite well. Even SUN I  
believe did the same thing to woo its SUN3/xxx base to the SPARC line. Does  
NeXT have the resolve to do this sort of thing for its customer base?

Time will tell.
--
David Williams -- dlw@atherton.com -- NeXTMail welcome
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy