Post by thread:For what its worth (was programming problems)

On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, John Miskimins wrote: > I use both Macs and DOS boxes. I prefer the Mac for both development and > "writing manuals" and other graphics intensive tasks. I use a windows > based machine because there some apps out there that are only written for > that platform. Yeah, that description was moderately provocative, wasn't it? <grin> However, it did accurately represent my own first-hand experiences. FWIW, the Macs were most often used for graphics and animation, and I don't think any of these folks that I know actively prefer to move from another platform to the Mac just to document the work they've done. But I didn't want to leave that without alluding to the set of apps that carved out the Mac's original niche - a solid base that still helps anchor the Mac in the marketplace. > There is no single "best" machine. Publishing the interface specifications > for the programmers that are out there would seem like a sensible thing to > do even if there were only one platform. Yeah, but the vendors still tend to consider such things proprietary - and there's some justification for protecting the work they've done developing such hardware in many cases. It does seem that it would be entirely to Microchip's benefit to reveal such things, since they're not really in that business except as it supports the sales of their microcontrollers - at least, there would be a strong argument in favor of being open on their part.

At 9:18 AM 10/8/96, Martin J. Maney wrote: >Yeah, but the vendors still tend to consider such things proprietary - >and there's some justification for protecting the work they've done >developing such hardware in many cases. It does seem that it would be >entirely to Microchip's benefit to reveal such things, since they're not >really in that business except as it supports the sales of their >microcontrollers - at least, there would be a strong argument in favor of >being open on their part. Companies don't develop such things, people do. If someone out "sells" Microchip on the idea then they may pay for it. However in this case I think a Mac version of PIC development tools is probably not going to sell. craig ps. I've always had a Mac and will always have a Mac for code development. For me, nothing else even comes close (I use DOS, 3.1, 95, NT, and Linux all day long).