All Databases MacTech Vol 11-1995

Jul 95 Dialog Box

Volume Number: 11

Issue Number: 7

Column Tag: Dialog Box

Dialog Box

By Neil Ticktin, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher

Symantec Top 10

Why do you run that multi-column advertisement you call “Symantec To 10”? I

realize there are probably a lot of people out there unfortunate enough to still be using

it, but on the other hand there are a quite a few making the switch to Metrowerks

CodeWarrior. And I, for one, would like to see a similar article dealing with them. By

placing an article where Symantec answers questions you are giving the illusion they

actually care. They don’t! If they do care, why don’t they produce a .sym file, a

Macintosh standard for many years now? Then at least we wouldn’t be tied to their

buggy debugger?

Guy Nicholas

gnichola@aol.com

[We get this question from time to time. What it really comes down to is this.

Both CodeWarrior and Symantec C++ are the major players in the tool market - each

have very sizable pieces of the Macintosh market. While CodeWarrior has been

steadily gaining share in the installed user base for some time now, it is only in recent

months that Metrowerks’ installed base comes close to rivaling Symantec’s. Since day

one, Metrowerks has done an amazing job of gaining “mind share” - now their user

base is matching that. How do we know all this? Readers tell us what they are using

and give us feedback on development environments. And even though CodeWarrior

users tend to be more “vocal” (and rightfully so) than Symantec users, the numbers

still don’t lie.

Having said all of that, we have in the past, and will now publicly invite

Metrowerks to contribute to the magazine. If you think that this is a good idea, send me

a note (publisher@xplain.com) as to what you’d like to see. If you want, you could also

send a note to Greg Galanos at Metrowerks (galanos@metrowerks.com) and let him

know your thoughts. With your input, we’ll be happy to oblige.

As far as Symantec is concerned, we get lots of reader response saying that folks

like the Symantec Top 10. Whether you do or don’t, send us a note - we use your

feedback as a gauge for the magazine. And why doesn’t Symantec use the .sym format?

Beats me - I think they should have a long time ago as well. Ed. - nst]

Symantec C++ 8.0 Yawn

Yawn... I just received Symantec’s C++ 8.0 and I am not impressed again. Over

the years, I have purchased update after update from Symantec in hopes that they

would produce a version of C or C++ that I could stand to use. I admit that this version

is better than 7.0, but they don’t have a winner yet.

We like to think that computer programming is the most modern of all industries

but it sure doesn’t seem that way when you realize that THINK Pascal which was last

updated in 1991 is still the best programming environment ever created for the

Macintosh or any other computer. Everything else that I have tried makes me slower

and less productive as a programmer.

In comparison to the four year old THINK Pascal, the new C++ is just another bad

joke from Symantec. The editor in THINK Pascal formats the source code and finds

most of my syntax errors before I try to compile. The editor in C++ makes a pathetic

attempt at formatting the source code but it doesn’t even try to look for syntax errors.

Lets face it, we spend most of our programming time using an editor. Isn’t it foolish to

use an editor that doesn’t make your life as easy as possible.

Besides having the best editor, the compiler and linker in THINK Pascal are much

faster than the ones in C++. I ran the “Hello World” program in C++ on a Power Mac

6100 and an equivalant program in THINK Pascal on my old Mac II. THINK Pascal on

the Mac II compiled, linked and ran the program while C++ was still spinning it’s

wheels. The speed of the edit/compile/debug/edit cycle, makes or breaks a

development environment. C++ looses again on the speed of the development cycle.

Nothing beats THINK Pascal for overall development speed. It puzzles me, why do so

many programmers put up with C++?

The good news is that THINK Pascal seems to truly move at “Lightspeed” on a

Power Macintosh! Now we just need to convince Symantec that there are a lot of

programmers who want to buy a native code version of THINK Pascal! Symantec won’t

even have to touch the original if they just add a Pascal compiler that produced

PowerPC code after all the interactive development is done in the emulated mode.

- Fred Johnson, Johnson Video Service, Knoxville, IL

[This too is a comment that we’ve heard many times in the past. A lot of people,

including myself, simply scratch their heads wondering why C++ has become so

popular. Pascal is so much easier a language in which to produce quality code quickly.

There are definite advantages to C or C++ when you want to get closer to the machine.

But most folks “in the know” feel that C++ is an embarrassment to the industry when

talking about object oriented languages. There are a lot of folks who have embarked on

the C++ path only to find that there code runs even slower than before. There are

others who claim to be using C++ but when you look at their code, you find that they

are mostly using C with very little in the way of actual C++ usage.

But, your comments are mostly about the future of THINK Pascal. I’m not sure

that making THINK Pascal capable of developing native Power Macintosh code is an easy

task. Given the incredible integration between the editor and compiler in THINK

Pascal, I believe that it may be fairly difficult. Nevertheless, if the community will

support it, then Symantec may do it. The only way to help the cause is to let Symantec

know about it. You can send them mail or you can send it to me

(publisher@xplain.com) and I’ll forward it on. Short of that, I’m not sure what to tell

you - except that I would like to see a native THINK Pascal as well. Ed. - nst]