From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Date: 11 Nov 92 04:20:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: rpi.4mp112j

ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
> gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes:
> >The OS developer could take advantage of all that's been (painfully)
> >learned about porting software, and try to address it before any  
> >assumptions (by programmers developing on that platform) are locked
> >in stone.
> 
> How?  By scrutinizing every line of code developers write?  NeXT
> has complete control over its own source code, but none over what's
> written by developers.  You can't do *everything* with OS calls, you
> know.

You can provide the OS calls to do "everything", and then tell programmers  
to use them.  If their code breaks, you can tell them which routine they  
*should* be using.  If you do this before they write a few million lines of  
code, they will get the hang of what they need to do to write portable code.

Much more challenging work is done to get applications to work on platforms  
which are *much* more different than NeXTSTEP 68K and NeXTSTEP 486 will be.   
Granted, there is a learning curve, but then the same is true for writing  
any application on a Mac (or on Windows, or using X).

> >> Oh?  You mean problems have shown up?  You mean, they actually had
> >> to *test* these programs.  I thought "all that is required is typing
> >> make, waiting for it to compile, copying it to a floppy disk, shrink-
> >> wrapping the disk, and sending it to a customer."
> 
> >Oh, stop being a ninny.  Certainly I never claimed that, so if you're  
> >arguing against me (which seems to be the case since you're quoting me),  
> >then the above is sheer nonsense on your part.
> 
> But other people have.  "Any program with NeXTstep can be ported
> to the 486 or any other processor in less than 24 hours.  All it
> takes a simple compile."  T'aint so.  Never is.


Let's just wait for time to prove this one.  There is no sense about us  
debating this as if we have any real idea how hard it will, in fact, be.


> >a) Well, people have claimed a lot of things about a lot of 
> >   different company's plans.  Let's see what happens in reality
> >   before passing judgement on this part.  (I'm not being snide
> >   here, I just very much doubt that NeXT will be *selling*
> >   machines on all the different architectures that have been  
> >   rumoured about.  I can believe that they might have
> >   *in-house* machines with NeXTSTEP running on a lot of
> >   architectures).
> 
> I agree.  I don't believe NeXT could possibly be so silly as to 
> try to support machines running on a dozen different processors.
> But people have claimed that NeXT can and will support all of them
> and that this is a "great advantage" over the Mac, which will be
> limited to "one or two CPUs."

Hmm.  You're saying two different things, one of which I agree with and one  
of which I think you're missing the boat on.  First, I agree that NeXT will  
(probably!) not be shipping on a dozen different architectures within the  
next year or two.  This fact reduces all the penalties (to end-users, and to  
NeXT developers) as you have described them.

However, NeXT *is* running NeXTSTEP in-house on several different  
architectures.  This *does* give NeXT an advantage that the Mac OS does not  
have (well, not in it's current form, at least).  When it comes time to trot  
out the NeXT RISC station, NeXT can chose whichever architecture looks the  
most promising on the hardware front.  Apple does not have that option with  
the current Mac OS.  If, say, by some miracle, the P5 turns out to be a  
dozen times faster than the PowerPC chip, NeXT can bless that as their  
*official* product (that's not likely with the P5, but some other chip that  
NeXT has in-house might very well be).  NeXT developers will only have to  
care about the final choice, but the fact that NeXT can have NeXTSTEP  
running on a variety of architectures is a significant advantage when it  
comes to making that decision.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy