Le jeudi 13 décembre 2001, à 01:45 , Jeff810095@... a écrit :

> Jonnnathan,
>
> You seemed to not want FB to evolve at all.

and you seem to be confusing fb - the language - with the editor and 
project manager.
i'm all for fb evolving, that was my sole point of agreement with you:
- tcp support.
the rest of your remarks involved the editor, the project manager,
tools, help and dancing polar bears...

i want fb - the language - to evolve. i don't care for staz [and andy]
to waste time with unnecessary extras [imh&go] when he could be doing 
that.


> Just the way it is is fine. I was
> attempting to offer some constructive opinions to see it evolve into an 
> even
> better product. Maybe Boeing should still be building Stratoliners, and 
> Ford
> Model T's.

analogy is not reason. in this case you have demonstrated that perfectly.
boeing do build stratoliners and ford do build model t's.
these both are means of transport in a particular medium. all both 
constructors
have done is refined the basic transport model and added lots of dancing
trombones, but fondamentally they're stratos and t's.

[i neither own a car nor take planes]

> You say you started programming with assembler. You don't still use it? 
> Why?
> Is the programming environment in FB better? If so, then you make my 
> case...a
> better user interface/environment is....ummm....better (and more 
> productive).

the disadvantage of assembler is that it is tied to the metal. i 
switched from
a 6502 to a 68000 and didn't want to learn a new bunch of mnemonics. so 
i learned fb,
and it has neld me from the 68020 [that i started it on] through to the
7500 that is in my machine today. i count that if tomorrow i find mac os 
on
arm processors, or elsewhere, then my mental investment in fb won't be 
lost.
if i had learnt the mnemonics...

i have in the past coded fb from bbedit, alpha and tried to do the same 
in pepper.
i stick with the editor now as it is a hassle to add keywords in those 
when the
language [the reason that i use it] changes. and as staz updates the 
editor to
do all this automatically... why bother. sure i have done my part of 
screaming
at staz when fb doesn't use the same shortcuts as bbedit.

so the answer is plain laziness.

> You offered not one suggestion to make it better...other than to tell 
> me to
> write the code myself and / or buy  the company. Neither of which, I 
> assure
> you, is going to happen. (I'm much too busy trying to buy MicroSoft :)

but i don't want to change it. and i was pointing out that half of the 
things
_you_ wanted were already there. the others i don't sincerely believe 
are useful,
and i don't want to see staz wasting time on them. i repeat, if you 
think that
they're so wonderful, go ahead and do it, then let the users decide.

>> build the applications in FB that I built in Helix would be near
>> impossible....or take years to code and debug.
>>>     i believe that this says more about you than about fb. that's all.
>>>    and if that's the way that you wish to go, then you should be 
>>> using pg.
>
> Yea Ok....I can't even get the simple Read# command to work properly 
> (see my
> other thread here) because of a problem FB had in the version I have. 
> I'm
> going to trust my business to this application? Don't think so. But 
> thanks
> for the insult anyway.

ok. this is fb's fault. i have reads allover and up to now they work.
fb is evolving, if you get a bug, call staz, send over the code and i'll
bet that he sends you, not only a patch, but also a big 'thx' and he may
even be embaressed enough to make other offers to you.

pg isn't an insult. i have said in the past, quite violently, my dislike
of it, but i know folks here can do some great stuff with it. it does 
provide
a level of abstraction that i don't like, but as time goes by i 
understand
the idea behind the thingy better and admire staz's work on it, more and 
more.

practically no programming language is exempt of faults and 
'undocumented features'
- i get the mactech mailing list and even if real basic announces a new 
release
even three days [geoff, this is an exageration, no need to step in], 
they are mostly
updates to cover bug releases. i will argue against rb because there are 
things,
notably the gui, that i don't like, but not on bug releases, that is an
inevitable part of coding at that speed and level. the same applies for 
staz,
for code warrior, hey even php has a list of 'features that don't work
as expected/documented'.

and your read statement should work now, thanks to your post here.
and if i remember, i was one of those who posted to help you...

>>> inside mac is dead. it is now called inside carbon.
>>> the sample code is in c now. it is a free download from apple's site,
>>> developed with the developer cds, and available online.
>
> Yes, I know that. I posted links to it here for OT and AppleTalk....most
> people still know it by the name "Inside Macintosh." At least I didn't 
> call
> "Russia" the "Soviet Union", that would have clearly been an error :)

i don't undestand this analogy, but it doesn't matter.

>>> it appears to me that folks should buy fb for what it is. nt what they
>>> imagine it to be, nor what they intend that it should be.
>>> it is a code-based environment. not a visual ide.
>
> Well, I bought FBII for "what it was"....I thought FB^3 was supposed to 
> be a
> big step up upgrade with AppleTalk support. I was sadly disappointed. 
> But
> that's just me. You are apparently very happy with it. But again, you 
> offer
> nothing constructive to make it better. I offered my thoughts to be
> constructive. And I know Staz and company have their hands full moving 
> it to
> OS X and other things. My post was meant to be a point of discussion. 
> Nothing
> more. Nothing I said probably hasn't already crossed the mind of Staz &
> Company.

why should *i* offer anything to make it better [other than x posts 
trying to explain
code to you]? i just use the thing. you complained to staz, he offered 
to reimburse
you. you refused. that's my problem?
and i do do things to help make fb better; however i'd don't talk about 
these
in public. i don't see the point; either they do make things better, or 
they don't,
but they don't need me crying over them.
[if you want a list - mail privately]

>>> no. most people want instant gratification and are not prepared to 
>>> give
>>> any part of themselves in that. when they buy a computer and it 
>>> doesn't
>>> transform them into a great programmer/writer/artist they dish the
>>> machine or the software, rather than realising that these things 
>>> take  work
> .
>
> Who's asking to be transformed? Believe me, I've spent (wasted?) more 
> time
> (and money) than I care to think about building computers and learning 
> how
> they work. But writing an app to send a simple text file by AppleTalk 
> should
> not be a six month project. Most people don't have unlimited time to 
> spend on
> this stuff.

i have never had this need so i have no idea of the complexity of the 
project.
i haven't even had an appletalk network for years so i wouldn't know 
where to
test/start. sure, i've got pet projects of mine on a backburner. however 
i don't
blame fb for that.

[snip]

>>> fb doesn't pretend to be what it isn't. and as you recognise, staz
>>> listens, and is fair
> I don't have a single complaint about Staz. That's not what my post was 
> about
> at all....in fact I think I gave him credit for working on improvements 
> to
> FB. He's always responded to my emails and did so politely. I'm in his 
> corner
> here and want FB to succeed. If I didn't I wouldn't be posting to this 
> board.
> It is the people defending the "status quo" who are hurting FB. Not Me.

i don't think i defend the status quo. it might appear like that here. 
but i've
signed a nda... in blood.


>>> hey, there's nthing to stop you making your own graphic ide. if you
>>> think that this is so great, and that people are crying out for it, 
>>> you
> should >>make a killing.
>
> Oh, there's a lot stopping me. Time...the know how to put such an 
> interface
> on top of FB....  But there is already a company "making a killing" 
> with a
> graphical interface....its called RealBasic. And the company we like 
> better
> respond to it before it's too late (another reason I took the time to 
> write
> this).

rb is another beast, with another market and another public. i see fb as
cw without the hassle. each to his own. [besides, now that mars works at 
rb
i have vowed to not say anything cheaply nasty about them]

again i repeat: love fb for what it is. and it ain't rb. and if it 
were...

>>> c'mon, are your serious? what the *** is a mind for? is learning 
>>> really
>>> too difficult?
>
> I suppose if I stood in traffic I could learn cars will hit you very 
> hard.
> But why should I need to kill myself? The objective is to learn....not 
> feel
> pain doing so. Why can't your computer help you learn? You don't like 
> that
> idea either?

but *my* computer does help me learn. it's yours that doesn't.
>
>>> what the *** does this have to do with things? videos to learn fb?<<
> Ok....you don't like TV either. Got it.

how did you guess. although i make an exception for er and x-files.
but i have no video, i never used the dvd capability on my macs, and i
love nothing more than curling up with a good book!

>>> and dancing trombones too? i get that feeling that we are not living
>>> in the same universe.
> Yea...your right. Clicking on sometthing to learn about is a stupid 
> idea too.

as i have already said. these possibilities are already in fb.
- use the plugins
- command-option click on keywords to get the proto
i don't need a dancing beercan to tell me that.

> Well, I guess we accomplished a lot here today :)

i doubt it too. i just wanna have fun with fb, help others too. i 
subscribe to
this list to throw out smartass remarks, get scolded by mom, and from 
time
to time post some questions about fb. like most folks around here.

:-j