It seems that NewtonScript is a major factor contributing
to the sluggish uptake (and near-death) of the Newton.

NewtonScript seems to be like Esperanto; a custom
language with some nice features but not really
that popular because everyone wants to speak
something else.  A small (decreasing) elite claim
it is fantastic.

C/C++ is more like English; a bit of a hodge-podge
but spoken by a huge percentage of the world's
population.

Why the Newton should have had, from the start,
a cross-platform (yes guys, Windows *is* popular),
standard C/C++ development environment;

- There is a massive C/C++ skillbase in the developer
  community that could have been leveredged to develop
  Newton apps.

- There is a huge amount of C/C++ source code as well
  as algorithms and libraries implemented in this
  language.

- C++ is *exciting* to many people who would have
  been very interested in seeing their work implemented
  on a portable device such as a Newton.  Even better
  would be a simple C/C++ development environment on
  the Newt itself so that people could play and
  experiment with their C++ code while on the road,
  at uni, etc...

- One acronym: GNU

Hell, even Scheme or Lisp would have been better than
NewtonScript.  The amount of source code in these languages
is immense.

It is sad to see a promising and visionary device
such as the Newton brought down by such a poor decision
by the language "purists".  Language elitism does not
benefit anyone but a few with their own barrow to push.

- Peter.

In article <5taq2b$7i...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:

Yes, C++ is a hodge-podge alright (^;.  If I had my druthers, Pascal would
rule the world, but where were you 20 years ago?  You sound like my old
boss talking about COBOL when C started to pick up steam.

No, Newtonscript may not win the popularity contest, but thinking C++ is
like English and will rule the world forever is plain silly.  Let's face
it, COBOL was just verbose overkill for a single user-PC, that's why there
was plenty of room for improved languages in the 80s.  And can you
remember when OOPS was "the thing!"  Nearing the turn of the century and
already Java is showing up C++ for it's 80s insistence on verbose handles
and memory management.

Anyway, as PCs have done to COBOL, handhelds may do to C++.  The one
reason why Newtonscript is far better for handhelds than most languages
can be summed up in one word "protos".  Just see the problems being
discussed about porting JAVA, and what was supposed to be meant for
handhelds.  And clean portability has been the Holy Grail of programming
for 40 years.  I'd sooner buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

And besides, there is already, albeit limited, C++ compiler for Newtons
anyway.  And then there's NSBasic and Newt, too.

I'm sorry, what do you expect when you come to this group and call us all
language "purists"?  I know about 8 or so languages.  Newtonscript is just
better and gets the job done quicker and nicely.  I expect better
languages will become more popular in the near future and I'll be praising
and using them, too.  If you think C++ has "won" and you won't have
another 8 or so languages to learn before you type your last line of code,
you might have a harder time looking for work sooner than you think.  In
fact, if you want to talk popularity, aren't there more lines of BASIC
code in the world?

--
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
Above e-mail is phoney (die spammers!) Use drogin "at-sign" panix.com

pURL for Digital Objectives -  Newton Bookmark Manager for the digerati
http://members.aol.com/DigObj/pURL.html
NYC

In article <5taq2b$7i...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:

This is a major false decision by Apple! There are even more:

- the use of an object-oriented OS. Nowbody needs that.

- the use of a pen and not a keyboard. Everybody else uses a keyboard.

- another GUI. Everybody else uses Windows.

- lack of a file system. This soup thing is crazy.

- running on the ARM processor. Everybody else is using Pentiums.

- No support for Emacs. Does not even run GCC.

- No shell/command line. Familiar commands like "ls" and "tar"
  don't work.

- No Corba support. They claim it has objects. But it
  even doesn't support CORBA.

- Netscape Navigator could have run on it from day one. But it didn't.

There are many more poor decisions by the Newton group.

--
http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/

In article <5taq2b$7i...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:

It seems that NewtonScript is a reason for
the elegance of the Software on the Newton.
Bloat is not known. Apps are small and
are tightly integrated into the OS.
Seems like Apple/Newton Inc. is way beyond the competion.

Languages which are almost useless for application development
on small devices. C++ will be forgotten soon.

They won't be Newton apps. Just another incarnation
of Windows apps for the Desktop.

Most of them are not designed for a portable device
with an integrated object-oriented OS.

Better get a Windows CE device. It might fit your needs.
Otherwise this is old thinking. I would say from
the stone age where people were carving algorithms
in C++ files.

Bloat.

Immense and useless for the Newton.

The Newton simply stands out by its elegant design.
You want wo add features that may change its
face to be something completely different.

I would say, you haven't got the Newton nature. What is it?
Tell me. Quick.

--
http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/

: In article <5taq2b$7i...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,

[...]
:  
: I'm sorry, what do you expect when you come to this group and call us all
: language "purists"?  I know about 8 or so languages.  Newtonscript is just
: better and gets the job done quicker and nicely.  I expect better
: languages will become more popular in the near future and I'll be praising
: and using them, too.  If you think C++ has "won" and you won't have
: another 8 or so languages to learn before you type your last line of code,
: you might have a harder time looking for work sooner than you think.  In
: fact, if you want to talk popularity, aren't there more lines of BASIC
: code in the world?

You are entirely missing the point.  Take a look at the following post;

+>In order to get my feet wet with the C++ WindowsCE cross dev kit, I
+>ported XLisp v1.6 over to the WindowsCE/HPC platform.  The port, in
+>source code, and precompiled SH3/MIPS binary form is available at
+>
+>        http://tigar.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/pub/PocketLisp
+>
+>It is based on XLisp v1.6, a free Lisp Interpreter.  Versions are
+>available on tigar for SH3, MIPS, and Windows95/NT to facilitate
+>development on all platforms (the source can be recompiled under
+>Linux, or just about anywhere else as well, if you should fancy it..).
+>
+>There are no licensing restrictions, except those from David Betz,
+>the orignal author of XLisp for Unix.

Now *how long* has it taken to get a lisp compiler on the
Newton (is there one)??!??  There is so much stuff out there
written in C/C++ and so many developers eager to work with
this language that supporting it is a definate advantage.
I am not so arrogant as to say that C++ is the world's greatest
language (as you are saying about NewtonScript).  I'm am just
saying that the Newton would be far more popular and widely
used if you could create applications for it in C/C++ rather
than NewtonScript.  And despite your prophecies of doom, I am
quite certain C/C++ will be around for a long, long time
to come.

It is this arrogant, elitist attitude that almost killed
the Newton, and I'm not just talking about NewtonScript;
many of us PC/Windows owners had to suffer through years
of poor Newt-PC connectivity.  Developers had to use a
Mac or nothing and it was left to third-party developers
to supply non-Mac development tools.

Get off your high-horse.  Maybe you think to Newt is just
a yuppy toy for you "country-club" boys, but I believe it
could have been (and could still be) so much more!

Regards,
- Peter.

: --
: Sincerely,
: Alan Drogin
: Above e-mail is phoney (die spammers!) Use drogin "at-sign" panix.com

: pURL for Digital Objectives -  Newton Bookmark Manager for the digerati
: http://members.aol.com/DigObj/pURL.html
: NYC

sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) writes:

i'd suggest that *you* are missing the point.

NewtonScript was designed specifically to cater for the limitations of
handheld platforms:

- the use of bytecode, rather than ARM machine code, saves
  significant amounts of storage as anyone who has converted their
  apps to native code will tell you.

- the use of proto inheritance means that a feature-rich (you could
  even say bloated) application takes up 300k storage and less than
  that in heap space.

C++ (or C) programmers expect to have megabytes of storage and heap
available.  it's all very well to say that "so much stuff" could be
ported to the newton with a C/C++ compiler, but it is simply not true:
there is not enough RAM to support anything more than trivial C/C++
applications developed for other platforms.

repeat after me: a newton is not a small PC!

no, we're saying that NewtonScript is the most appropriate given the
limitations of the hardware ...

*if* you *could* ... but that would require completely different
hardware.  which is not "the newton".

so make it so.  stop your ill-informed abuse of people who know far
more about the topic than you.  investigate the real issues and set
about taking advantage of the strengths that the newton has to offer.

d

In article <joswig-ya023180001908970720330...@news.lavielle.com>,

In article <5taq2b$7i...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:

Uhhuh...and if everyone jumps off the cliff I'm sure you will too lol. ;-)
And who says English is an efficient language...far from it.  It's just the
easy way out because we all know it.

Maybe so, but why propogate bad programming and coding?  And you gain back
a LOT of productivity by using NS...c (it's not "C" people) and C++ are NOT
very productive languages to the programmer...they require a LOT of up
front work and a LOT of care just to manage memory leaks and all the 'c'
programmers who learned C++ tended to carry forward a lot of bad habits.
And C++ is far from object-oriented.   It's McDonald's for the programming
masses...pretty much the least common denominator if you don't count 'c'
itself.

They won't be Newton apps. Just another incarnation
of Windows apps for the Desktop.

Most of it badly written...evolved (or worse PORTED) from original 'c' code.  
C++ is ok as a language....but it's inherited a TON of badly written code
that people would just LOVE to port onto another platform.  How many
companies have a zero tolerance QC department when it comes to their C++
development...just because you're a big corporation using/creating tons of
C++ code doesn't mean you produce good code; quite the contrary.  

The one thing that hasn't been mentioned (as far as I know) is that the NTK
is a MUCH MUCH MUCH more stable product than any C++ compiler I've used
(and I've used a lot of them.)  I've never had the NTK crash out from under
me or crash the Mac.  I've had the Newton reset and crash due to what I was
doing in the NTK; but the environment itself is a wonder of stability.

Ah yes the greed factor....  They want to do it quickly instead of doing it
right.   You can develop NewtonScript on the road ON your Newton using
either Steve Weyer's NDE (Newt) or my own VisualNewt (which is in VERY
early beta).

Also, when was the last time you ran the Small-C compiler on any
incarnation of pc?  did you like it? Where you really impressed with the
power of the programs you were able to create?  That's pretty much the
quality of C++ you could expect.  Not very powerful, minimally useful but
mildly amusing.

Actually, FWIW a Micro-COBOL implementation on the Newton would be a more
logical choice *IF* you wanted a more standard language.  It's structured;
has database support, requires a minimal footprint, AND you can develop
meaningful apps...AND libraries...of course you'd have to bind it to the
proto system somehow.

My personal choice would be something on the order of Mops (a
structured/object-oriented FORTH).  But that's another can of worms.

Buggy...as most programs written by committee tend to be ;-)

So what's keeping you or anyone from writing a compiler/environment for ANY
of these languages...basically it comes down to the fact you (maybe not
personally but globally you) don't want to learn NewtonScript...you're
taking the easy way out.  You *can* write other compilers and stuff for the
Newton....I'm sure Newton, Inc. will even give you internals and help if
you are serious.  But do it using the tools at hand...NewtonScript and the
C++ tools.

Ah you've already made up your mind I see..."Newton brought down.."
It hasn't been brought down.  Who says it has?  Actually the return rate on
WindowsCE machines is about 50%.  So much for a supposedly state-of-the-art
mass appeal GUI and C++ environment.  And it has little to do with
hardware, and more to do with the user experience.

When it comes right down to it people like to take the easy way out.
They'd rather stay with something they know and get warm fuzzies from (C++)
rather than learn something better.  It has nothing to do with language
purism.  Rather it a decision based on pragmatic reasons and for the
productivity it provides.  It's like arguing...wow I'd never buy a
Ferrari...that's a snob's car...I'd rather stay with my nice Taurus.

I'd rather drive the Ferrari ;-)

S

--
====================================================================
S...@VisualNewt.com
http://www.VisualNewt.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...suddenly the ship ran aground on a deserted island, and they all
turned purple...yes they were marooned!"  -- ISIRTA
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Newt'sPaper(tm) the premiere Newton(R) MessagePad(tm) NNTP News Reader
http://www.VisualNewt.com/NewtsPaper.html
Newt'sWeather(tm) the Newton(R) MessagePad(tm) NIE Weather Solution
http://www.VisualNewt.com/NewtsWeather.html
VisualNewt(tm) a visual development environment for the MessagePad(tm)
http://www.VisualNewt.com/VisualNewt.html
Newt'sBrot(tm) the Newton(R) MessagePad(tm) Mandelbrot fractal explorer
http://www.VisualNewt.com/NewtsBrot.html
====================================================================

While I think NewtonScript is great (it could have been Self?), I have
to agree that the use of a proprietary language hurts the Newton's
support for existing product.

The Squeak group has been talking about porting Smalltalk to PDA's for
a while. The Windows CE port is already up and running (creating the
original DynaPad? (only with keyboard :-( )) (yes, I can use Lisp,
too) but the Newton port will be a (probably long) while.

It might have been considerably harder to create a C++ environment
that provides the advantages NewtonScript has in producing small
packages - but I think it would have been worth the result. (Don't
mind me, I still think C++ is the greatest language so far - I just
don't program in it.)

Pete M. Wilson
Starlight Computer Wizardry           http://www3.gamewood.net/scw
Newton & Windows 95 Software          mailto:s...@gamewood.net

In article <5taq2b$7i...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:

Actually, I'd have to completely disagree here. There are hundreds (maybe
thousands) of Newton apps. I'd wouldn't be surprised if there are more
Newton apps than apps for all other non-DOS handhelds combined.

I really don't think you can attribute Newton's market standing to lack of
applications (and hence to NewtonScript). If anything, Newton's survival
is due to the huge number of apps, and the productivity allowed by
NewtonScript!

Don

I agree that NewtonScript is a stumbling block to widespread Newton
acceptance.

As someone who has been working on the Squeak->Newton port on and off
for the past nine months, I can say: what a pain to do complex low level
things on the Newton for a Newton programming newbee!  It took months to
get the C++ tools from Apple (now they're free!), and even now the tools
are difficult to work with (e.g. no debugger for the eMate or MP2000);
tools are all cross-compilers without local emulators (like co-pilot for
the pilot); documentation is hard to access. As another post points out,
someone could port Lisp to Win CE in a short while.  The Squeak
Smalltalk port to windows CE took very little time.

Now there are a few things that affect my judgement: one is that I use a
Quadra 630 on the mac side with only a 17" monitor - and so the online
documentation is especially slow to use and needs to be scrolled.  Also,
I have never sat down and spent a month learning NewtonScript; I've
always had only a few hours here or there (at most, a couple of days in
a row).  So, I have never had a chance to learn NewtonScript well or in
a relaxed way.  Also, since my goal is to offer an alternative to
NewtonScript and C++ on the Newton, my attitude is "the less time spent
on them the better", and I don't feel any time invested in those tools
will offer any return (other than to maintain Smalltalk on the Newton).

Yet, there is no question that the Newton is still the superior hardware
(limited DRAM aside) over current Win CE.  I much prefer the form factor
and pen interface of the MP2000 over chicklet keys.  That is why I am
working with it.  Also, if I was going to develop a typical Newton app,
I would probably be very happy with NewtonScript and would use it for
its small footprint, protos, and easy of interoperability with other
NewtonScript apps.

The biggest problem I have with NewtonScript (and Newt, which is a great
system otherwise) is that in order to do programming on the Newton, you
need to carry around the NewtonScript documentation (or have it
memorized)!  Right now, that comes as thousands of pages of online
documentation.  You can't learn to program the Newton using Newt as a
stand alone tool (without referring to printed or mac-bound
documentation).  Steve Weyer has been adressing this with online
documentation books, so things are getting better.

Squeak has all its documentation built in - in a potential total memory
footprint of under a megabyte. And even with Newt, there is not the
equivalent of Smalltalk's integrated debugger.  

In my opinion, the innovations of the Newton - hand writing recognition,
soups, protos could have been served by a small library of C++ code,
perhaps layer over a multitasking Forth kernel (or even QNX). Even now,
if the Newton is to be used in vertical markets, an ability to
completely take over the hardware with an C++ application would be
desireable.

Don't get me wrong - I detest C and C++ as ugly and complex and fraught
with pitfalls.  But for low level OS development, they are still good;
even Squeak is implemented in C.  For fast code using minimum resources
they are still good.  For porting existing code, they are still good.

Yet, I do see the point to a safe language like NewtonScript -
especially if you are developing on a PDA that also has valuable
information you don't want to lose.

The issue I see is that Lisp, Forth, and Smalltalk have been around for
a very long time and are all capable of incremental development and OO
development (with extensions for Lisp and Forth). Their existence makes
NewtonScript an unneeded language.  (With QNX around for years, the
Newton OS was probably unneeded too.) That doesn't mean NewtonScript
isn't a good language, or useful, or neat.  That just means it is yet
another language; yet another fragementation of development efforts; yet
another thing to learn.  It addresses primarily one issue: limited DRAM
and slow to change FLASH RAM, by using protos.  While I think it likely
that limited DRAM issue could have been approached differently when the
Newton was first released years ago (use Forth or put in more memory),
it certainly is a non-issue now (where the MP2000 could easily have 4MB
DRAM for very little cost).  In that regard, NewtonScript is obsolete,
since limited memory is no longer an issue, and even if it was, there
are other standard alternatives (C++ or Forth).  Certainly the success
of the Pilot shows that you can have small programs written in C++ that
run on a PDA platform.

What the language arguement may miss is that there is more to
development than a language.  Forth, Lisp, and Smalltalk all can have
integrated debuggers on the target machine.  They all have developers
with years of experience and existing code libraries.

NewtonScript could have had a chance to become an important language if
it was made available on Windows, Mac, and UNIX as a stand alone
cross-platform development environment with integerated debugger (and
ideallly, web browser support).  But it is probably too late for all
that.

In my opinion, to make the Newton even more succesful, I would
recommend:
* 4MB DRAM machines standard
* Forth, Lisp, Smalltalk, and Python availability for the Newton.
* An ability to compile to the metal with C++ with GUI classes (and
limited or no OS support).
* A Newton emulator for Mac and Windows, with a built in debugger.

I don't think these are going to happen anytime soon, which pretty much
makes NewtonScript the only game in town for the forseeable future.
Even if they were, NewtonScript will probably always be the most
efficient thing to program the Newton in because of the 8MB of ROM
functions that support it. Even Squeak Smalltalk on the Newton will only
run on an expanded eMate if and when I or someone else finishes it.
Hopefully after it runs there, some innovations might allow it to run on
the MP2000, but that will require yet more rework and may cause it to
run slowly (say by keeping an image on an SRAM card to make up for lack
of DRAM).  

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software
===========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Download version 1.0 of our Garden Simulator for Windows from:
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com

It's not that different form C++/Pascal.  Frankly I can't see how it
can hurt to have NewtonScript now that the tools are free.  I do agree
that having only NewtonScript available from only Apple/Steve Weyer
(thanks steve) was bad... But not that it's free...

ttyl
Jason

In article <5tbdjj$j0...@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:

And I'll be waiting for the explosion of useful WinCE commercial products
because of this wonderful LISP port...NOT!

I did NOT say Newtonscript was the greatest language, I said it was better
than C++ for the handheld..

It didn't happen, it'd be difficult to change that, lets move on.  Your
argument is purely based on popularity, not on any knowledge of
Newtonscript, and surely not with any thought that perhaps there's room
for improvement in the future.  What you don't see are programmers around
here saying, "oh I learned Newtonscript and it sucks".  Sure in the ideal
world you could learn one language, port it anywhere, and just sit back
and let your code re-use itself forever.

I have friends who still program in assembler for a living, so what?  It's
you who have already prophecied the doom of the Newton.  C++ will fade.
Computer languages are not like spoken languages, they're like
generations.  And the next generation of schooled programmers will be
laughing at coding handles and memory management. Newtonscript will fade,
too, but it hasn't reached it's generational mark yet.

Ah, I agree, connectivity is poor, but that seems to be more based upon
the filing and data structure than on Newtonscript itself.  I think this
is just one area that Apple Newton just didn't throw enough resources at
solving.

Point number 2.  Yes, it was a shame WinNTK took so long to get out of
beta.  Funny thing was, one of the reasons was the shaky PC serial
connectivitiy.

Quite the opposite.  I used to be a desktop programmer for almost 20
years, but  it was just getting too expensive to buy all the upgraded
manuals (MacApp alone takes up an entire bookshelf), debuggers, resource
managers, and keep track of these huge bloated application frameworks and
still remain a personal programmer (the PC world was beginning to look
like the Mainframe world I had left almost 20 years ago).  When NTK came
out, it had one manual, and one developer toolkit.  It was simple and
elegant.  And now it's free.  I think there's some other underlying angst
going on for you to use the term "yuppy toy".  Did some young kid with a
cellular phone and not the faintest idea of what an opcode is just put you
out of job?

As I said, the C++ thing didn't happen for the Newton, too bad, now crack
open that Newtonscript ref manual and learn something new.

--
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
Above e-mail is phoney (die spammers!) Use drogin "at-sign" panix.com

pURL for Digital Objectives -  Newton Bookmark Manager for the digerati
http://members.aol.com/DigObj/pURL.html
NYC

David Arnold <arn...@foxtail.dstc.edu.au> wrote in article
<o43eo6y73f....@foxtail.dstc.edu.au>...

I think that your assertion that C or C++ is not suited to the handheld
platform is disputable.  An obvious case is the PalmPilot.  Here we have a
handheld unit that not only allows applications to be devloped in C, but
has an OO operating system written in C.  Somehow this unit manages to have
roughly the same memory footprint as a Newton  Furthermore, this unit has
been commended for its speed despite its "bloated" operating system.  I
think that if we compared the amount of third-party software, shareware,
freeware available for the Newton at the same age as the PalmPilot, it
would be obvious that the PalmPilot has benefitted from its development
environment.  I am not saying that I don't like NewtonScript, however I'm
quite sure that its complexity and the lack of low cost development tools
(up until recently) has discouraged more than on would-be developer.

Brian Z.

: - the use of bytecode, rather than ARM machine code, saves
:   significant amounts of storage as anyone who has converted their
:   apps to native code will tell you.

: - the use of proto inheritance means that a feature-rich (you could
:   even say bloated) application takes up 300k storage and less than
:   that in heap space.

As a lay user I would say NewtonScript on the Newton has some "wonderful"
consequences -- like mixing a pinch of NS in with NSbasic or QFPro. I love
the idea of a poweful scripting language next door, just in case. However,
producing compact programs on Newton sized devices is, in some real ways,
an old idea. Newton sized devices of tomorrow will have 16megs or more of
memory, more speed etc. The need for small code at the price of
performance is an idea which the development community needs to rethink. I
suppose for many really really small devices of tomorrow there will always
be the speed, power, & memory constraints of early Message Pads. But,
again, for the larger devices there's gonna be a lot of memory and speed
so we'd better know how to use it.

For example, a StrongArmed based Wince device is comming around the bend
soon. I believe, if I am right, it's going to be several times faster.
It's time to think fast first then compact. Features too -- need class
libraries from third parties etc.

How? Dunno. C++ or Java plus NS maybe. NS has to be there, of course. I
still believe Java isn't. Java will get assimilated by the Borgs from
Redmond anyway.

--
+-- Telephone  HEADSETS - corded, cellular, wireless. ----------------------+
|   Plantronics, Unex, ACS, GN Netcom, VXI, and more. Repairs too.          |
|   Commercial, small office home office. All nations, almost all phones.   |
+-- Increase productivity, ease neck pain. (253) 845-4088  j...@eskimo.com -+

On 19 Aug 1997 00:40:43 GMT, sa...@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The

I would suggest that Java would be a good substitute,
**IF** the core language does not suffer from too
much bloat:  a case in point: new JFC classes should
(probably) not be part of the core API, and the
"Personal Java" api is still a little too fat.

Java with a really slimmed down "standard" class
library seems perfect for Newton-like devices.
(BTW, I bought a Newton when they first came out,
and I did not particularly care for the NewtonScript
language -- although it served a need at the time).

-- Mark

+  Mark Watson, author and Java consultant.
+  Java products: http://www.markwatson.com
+  Buy direct from the developer and save!!

On Tue, Aug 19, 1997 12:35 PM, Paul Fernhout <mailto:kfs...@netins.net>
wrote:
->Don't get me wrong - I detest C and C++ as ugly and complex and fraught
->with pitfalls.  But for low level OS development, they are still good;
->even Squeak is implemented in C.  For fast code using minimum resources
->they are still good.  For porting existing code, they are still good.
->
->Yet, I do see the point to a safe language like NewtonScript -
->especially if you are developing on a PDA that also has valuable
->information you don't want to lose.
->
->The issue I see is that Lisp, Forth, and Smalltalk have been around for
->a very long time and are all capable of incremental development and OO
->development (with extensions for Lisp and Forth). Their existence makes
->NewtonScript an unneeded language.

I'm afraid that I can't see much point to doing Lisp, Forth and Smalltalk
for the Newton  as alternatives to NewtonScript (though I think there
already is a small Lisp interpreter.)  Compared to the more popular
languages like Basic and C/C++ the sizes of their developer bases are are
all down in the noise.  Forth seems to be effectively dead--It isn't even
used much in the embedded market anymore as far as I can tell.   Smalltalk
has a small but strong following but it doesn't have much chance anymore
with the onslaught of Java and Visual Basic.  I think even the Smalltalk
stronghold at IBM is moving to Java now.

NewtonScript is a highly appropriate language and runtime environment for
its intended target.  Until something can reasonably replace it this
argument is not very interesting.   Eventually, the cost of hardware may
make it a moot point, but that time is not here yet.  The argument that
NewtonScript is preventing a rush of applications is debatable based on the
large number of Newton applications available.  The whole argument is a
strawman, created to start a flame-war, just ignore it.

--
Jim Bailey <mailto:j...@shore.net>
<http://www.tiac.net/users/jdb>

In article <dev-null-1908970039040...@drogin.dialup.access.net>,

Don't forget FORTRAN 77. No matter how limited the language is it
is still the most common language in science.

        Andrew

--
Andrew Maier                            Tel:    +41-22-76-77907
CERN/PPE                                FAX:    +41-22-782-3084
CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland          e-mail: Andrew.Ma...@cern.ch
God is real, unless declared integer

"Huge?"  This may be true if the boundaries of your world include only
the U.S. & Europe.

Este mundo tiene muchas lenguas (hablar y computadoras) y es necessario
por cambio.

--
Jason Dufair
fu...@n.o.s.p.a.m.iquest.net (remove n.o.s.p.a.m. to reply)
http://www.iquest.net/~funne/
PGP key @ http://www.iquest.net/~funne/jdufair.asc or keyservers

* Don Vollum
| I really don't think you can attribute Newton's market standing to lack
| of applications (and hence to NewtonScript).  If anything, Newton's
| survival is due to the huge number of apps, and the productivity allowed
| by NewtonScript!

but don't you see?  if programmers are more productive, users are happier,
and there won't be much bitching and moaning about crappy software in the
trade rags, dimwits won't find things to "fix" and boost their ego with,
there won't be millions and millions of below-average programmers who write
junk software, and the Newton will die.  if you want to succeed, use an
unproductive language that attracts stupid people, write buggy software
that gets lots of press (make sure to write it so badly that you open a
door for viruses in _each_ of your applications!), and get unhappy users
who crave the next version like you're pushing dope on them.  make sure you
offer your customers a belief in a better _tomorrow_.  don't give them any
good stuff today -- nobody believes in things they can _see_.  you need to
create _illusions_ to get people to buy from you again and again, and you
just can't create illusions when people actually get what they dreamed of
right away.  nono, leave them craving, and you got them by the balls.

actually, I hope that the Newton will show people that they don't _have_ to
be forever unhappy sufferers of Microcrud.  I'm glad they chose a new
language for the Newton.  it's the only way we can hope for progress.
(that's right, that's "a better _tomorrow_" all over again.  see how
fundamental it is to inspire with the future?)

#\Erik
--
man who cooks while hacking eats food that has died twice.

i didn't say that C/C++ was unsuitable for handhelds.

i *did* say that NewtonScript was designed to address the limitations
of handhelds.  that doesn't mean that C/C++ is unsuitable, just that
NewtonScript *is* suitable.

an assertion had been made that C/C++ was *more* suitable for the
Newton than NewtonScript.  i don't believe that is so.

-- David Arnold   ,=================================================
================='                             +617 33654310 (voice)
CRC for Distributed Systems Technology         +617 33654311   (fax)
University of Queensland                    dav...@pobox.com (email)
Australia                     <http://www.pobox.com/~davida>   (web)

  C++ compilers rarely optimize for the joy of programming - lwall

On 20 Aug 1997 09:41:38 +1000, David Arnold

As someone who's been doing NewtonScript, C, C++ and now C/C++ under
WinCE, I can tell you that NewtonScript is nicer by a long shot.
Faster during execution, no - nicer during design and implementation,
yes. Of course the poor debugging tools (still no source level
debugger) and lack of a desktop emulation environment in the NTK
somewhat negate that.
 -=====

 John Schettino
 j...@biteme.gte.com
 (you know not to use the biteme part, right?)
 http://members.aol.com/pdcjohns

Speed it produces on a 68k processor, too!

(P.S. I love my MP2k - I don't have a Pilot.)

Pete M. Wilson
Starlight Computer Wizardry           http://www3.gamewood.net/scw
Newton & Windows 95 Software          mailto:s...@gamewood.net

+---------------
| - the use of a pen and not a keyboard. Everybody else uses a keyboard.
+---------------

Gee, somebody ought to tell the USR\\\ 3Com "Pilot" developers (over 3000!)
and users (several million!).  ;-}  ;-}   They seem to do o.k. without one.

+---------------
| - another GUI. Everybody else uses Windows.
+---------------

Ditto above.

+---------------
| - running on the ARM processor. Everybody else is using Pentiums.
+---------------

Pilot uses a 68k.

-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 7L-551             r...@sgi.com   http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc.          Phone: 650-933-1673 [New area code!]
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd.         FAX: 650-933-4392
Mountain View, CA  94043        PP-ASEL-IA

I know how wonderful C++ Builder is, as I use Delphi which is where it
takes most of it's VCL from.

Actually you are correct, there is no reason the prototypes couldn't
still be in ROM will a modified C++ interface.

ttyl
Jason

On Tue, 19 Aug 1997 13:04:44 -0400, dev-n...@panix.com (Alan Drogin)
wrote:

Only shaky because someone made the decision not to use standard
Windows serial drivers and write their own.  That someone shall remain
nameless, but as an organization it does often fall into the "not
invented here" trap.

ttyl
Jason