From: bloc1469@ee.ee.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Advocacy? What do you want for the Amiga?
Date: 13 Jan 1993 01:38:38 GMT
Organization: Electrical Engineering Dept. University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.2.33

In article <C0qGJE.FAC@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>   Which I never said, of course.  Conveniently losing my quote so that you
>can put words in my mouth.  

Why on EARTH would I even attempt to put words in your mouth when
hundreds of people in this newsgroup see you struggle with it daily?

Here's your statement, oh flambouyant one.  For some reason, it _DID_ look
like I had responded to his statement, but in retrospect, searching
back for your original post, my original response did have the correct
attributions, and you simply had ignored the fact that it had ever
been written, seemingly, which is fine.

(header removed, and some original "backlogged" text removed)
   That is the typical Amigoid attitude.  With "one of the best multitasking
OSs around", you are too proud to run useful software on the computer.  But
perfectly willing to run non-multitasking games and demos.
   You have the vision of a bat.  The included software in an Amiga 'works'
package could easily be written to take advantage of all of the Amiga's
multitasking capabilities.  The big advantage of an Amiga 'works' package...

Hopefully you feel less like an asshole.  I mean, it's not every day
you get to remember that you made a total ass out of yourself by
calling someone who was quite correct a person with "the vision of a
bat". Assuming that since no existing "works" package had been written
to do what a works package on the amiga would need to, nearly
invalidating the use of putting it together as a works package, that
one wouldn't be wanted in the traditional manner is correct.

>   Ideally, the individual programs in a 'works' package should multitask
>very well.  There is no particular reason why the programs would not have to
>multitask.  The only people who would believe that a 'works' package would
>have to disable multitasking to function are the same people who do not want
>the Amiga to become easier to work with because it would result in increased
>sales to 'the wrong people', and end the elitest niche that Amigoids have
>digged the Amiga into now.

The point is, one would have to write a "works" package as if it were
many, strung-together applications, and not one application with many
facets, as every works program I've ever seen is written, to get any
sales.  After all, look how many people bought Gold Disk Office.

>   ARexx could be provided by the software as an extra, but it would not be
>the default means of linking the programs, because ARexx is too difficult to
>work with by first-time users.  The best method of linking the programs
>would be through an improved clipboard, with the methods of using the clipboard
>being exactly the same in all of the programs in the package.  

Both ideas would work perfectly.  To be honest, there's absolutely no
reason that using ARexx as the interapp communication should pose a
problem.  Anyone who's written an ARexx app would know, and I guess
that wouldn't be you, would it?

Also, the CURRENT clipboard could be used, you wouldn't need an
"improved" one.  The programs would simply tell each other where the
clip was being stored and decide upon it, and both would set up a
clipchangehook to it.  Everything else can be done with ARexx.

>   This is also a reason why trying to assemble existing applications into
>a works package would not suffice.  The user interface's of existing Amiga
>programs has been far from standardized, and this would result in having 

The user interface itself has been standardized, but the application
designers are slow to follow it due to the many 1.3 users still in
existence.  That is decreasing daily, though, and with the advent of
3.0, there will be more 1.3 users upgrading.

>programs in the package that did not look or work at all alike.  Further, the
>clipboard support in existing programs is either limited or non-existant,
>resulting in programs in the package that could not trade data easily.

Then you simply wouldn't _USE_ that as a module, would you?  That's
like saying ARexx sucks because WP4.1 doesn't have built-in support
for it.  Blame the app, not the method.

>   You still have to learn a macro language to send a picture from a drawing
>program to a word processor.  It might be fine for you, but requiring it
>for everybody would sacrifice sales, which would in turn would diminish the
>software support available to you.  Which would't be fine with you, I

YOU WOULDN'T.  THE DEVELOPER WOULD GIVE YOU ALL OF THE SCRIPTS NEEDED
FOR THE MODULES IN USE.  It would be the same as hardwiring, only when
the time comes that the user wants to use something else, he can edit
the script and change what happens.  See the point yet?

>assume.  The end result is, you should embrace anything that makes the Amiga
>easier and more productive to first-time users, because you would eventually
>benefit.

I'll not agree or disagree.  It's not totally correct, but it's not
totally incorrect, and I can't put my finger on why.

>   This is fine in best-case situations, where everything is setup just
>right.  But ARexx is far too prone to problems.  For instance, what if the
>ARexx support isn't setup right on a user's system?  Many files have to be
>in the right place and the right lines have to be in the user's startup-
>sequence for ARexx to work.  The idea of breaking everything in modules 

All script files must either be in the current directory, or in Rexx:.
The install script would move all of the script files into the correct
directory.  And the system DOES come with RexxMaster running, you
know, that's already set up.  So, no.

>is also prone to problems.  In your description above, what if the user's 
>preferred paint program did not support ARexx?  What if it did not support

Then it could not be used.

>the clipboard?  What if the pre-written scripts packaged with the package

Other ways could be written to get around the clipboard.  If, say, you
put the information into the clipboard for data exchange, one could
use "cf" to put it out to a file, and then use the paint program upon
it, replacing in that unit wiht the same file--if, again, one wanted to.

>did not support the paint program?  The ARexx scripts to make everything
>foolproof would have to be very long, so what about the speed problem with
>ARexx?  (ARexx is an interpreter, and has limits in terms of speed)

Actually, no, they wouldn't be that long at all.  There would be
several, though.  The point of the matter is that you are quite
incorrect in several of your presumptions.  You say above that in the
approach lack of support for the clipboard or arexx would invalidate
using the program of choice as a module.

SO WOULD HARDWIRING YOUR IPC.  As a matter of fact, with the above,
you could solve the problem by buying a program that DID have good
support for the clipboard and ARexx, say ProWrite.  If you hardwire
it, not even the above can help you.  It gives you an option based on
system standards, where hardwiring it gets you nothing.

>   The crux of that matter is that this approach is a lot like a house of
>cards.  It can stand on its own and work right if everything is perfect,
>but lots of things can go wrong.  Expert users could easily make it work
>and get alot done with it, but it would not do for users not all that
>familiar with the Amiga.  For beginning users, it would be better if the
>seperate programs in the 'works' package were written to support ARexx
>as an option, but not to depend on ARexx for the programs to work with
>each other.

I disagree, it matters not whether they depend upon ARexx or
not--beginning users are automatically going to have ARexx running on
their system because it is SET UP that way.  More importantly, things
will ALWAYS go wrong when things aren't in the right place--that's why
we have the C= installer.

Greg


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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy