From: joe@proto.com (Joe Huffman)
Subject: Re: Zortech and Walter (Was: Wrong directions at Borland?)
Organization: FlashTek, Inc.
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 01:47:07 GMT

alane@wozzle.linet.org (J. Alan Eldridge) writes:

>1. Walter's a bright guy (pun intended). His compilers are very good,
>but often a little quirky, and often released without sufficient testing.
>He does generate absolutely screaming code, though.

Bright?  I'm not sure what your standard of reference is for that...
Another former Zortech developer pointed out to me just recently (I 
also used to work for Zortech) that Walter was probably 10 points 
lower in the I.Q. department than the next lowest person on the 
Zortech development team (Walter claims his I.Q. is something like 125).  

Walter's attributes that allowed him to do relatively well writing a 
compiler were his ability overcome the "Not invented here" syndrome and 
his lack of social distractions.  He overcame the NIH problem by 
"forgetting" that he got most of his ideas from other people and promptly 
claiming them as his own.  He has no problems with social distractions 
because women won't go out with him more than once (the only women that 
will take their clothes off for him are the ones he pays at the strip 
joints in Seattle).  

As further evidence of Walter's 'brightness' and his social skills with 
women I offer you Walter's theory on women, pain, and child birth... 
"If women were in good shape, they wouldn't feel any pain during child 
birth."  His evidence?  An Airforce doctor once told him that the Eskimo 
women in Alaska that he treated experienced virtually no pain.  His 
final, irrefutable proof?  "Look, it's a natural function, it just shouldn't 
hurt."  I offered to take him to the local hospital maternity ward and 
we could sit in the lobby and listen to the women scream and he could
discuss his theory with the nurses on duty.  He protested that it was 
3:00 AM, no matter I told him... women in labor don't sleep much and there
are nurses on duty 24 hours/day.  He still refused, saying it wouldn't 
prove anything anyway.

For some reason (sociopaths like Walter can be very convincing... so really
I guess it isn't very surprising) Symantec decided that Walter was the only
real key person on the Zortech development staff and the others were told
(via Walter) that they didn't really care whether we stayed on or not.  So,
now it has been nearly one and a half years since Zortech has released a
new version and I'll let the merits of the latest Zortech offerings speak
for themselves.

>These are my own opinions resulting from conversations with Symantec
>personnel. 

These are my own opinions resulting from knowing and working with Walter
since 1980.

>The product is technically very good... but I wouldn't recommend it to
>a novice programmer, nor even someone just a novice at 32-bit DOS. This
>is a product for professional developers.

I still recommend the product for people doing 32-bit C++ DOS work, but 
I have to qualify my recommendation with the statement that the compiler 
itself is pretty good, but the rest of the product is overdue for additional 
work.  You have to get the latest versions of the debugger, graphics
library, and DOS extender elsewhere at additional cost.  This makes
the Zortech offering somewhat less than what it really should have been.
It seems that Walter and Symantec should have been 'bright' enough to figure
this out over a year ago, but then, their actions speak louder than their
words.
-- 
netcom!proto!joe
joe@proto.com
Newsgroups: uw.dcs.general,comp.lang.c++