I wonder, sometimes, at what it means to be a developer; what makes me different from the many numbers of people who exist, mostly, satisfied with what they have. For some reason, something drives me to write applications, and even to write here, and I believe that something is the something that drives all developers; the need to create; the need to leave something behind that is, in some way, a memory, a continuation, a belief, a thought, anything. Writers who keep memoirs use their memoirs to remind themselves of who they are, but also to know that who they are was someone, and is someone, too; their memories are more than just imaginary thoughts, they're physical, sitting in the log they keep. Journalists stash their articles. Prolific authors, or even not-so-prolific-but-well-intentioned authors like Dale Larson, go out on book signings; something that satisfies the ego, the publisher, and the audience, all without earning a death threat (unless you're a Green Card Lawyer). And just like most people, engineers,both software and hardware alike, feel that same need; witness the signed A1000 cases of so long ago, the secret messages hidden in the Amiga's OS.
See, I, as a man, and particularly as a gay man, if I were to psychoanalyze for a bit, am missing a rather large portion of the average person's life -- I have no means of procreation, I have, and will likely never have, a child. A child is more than just a product; it is something you leave behind, a walking, talking legacy that carries with it, whether it be good or bad, an impression of you, a small image of the person you are. Developing software or hardware is more than just creation; it is the leaving behind, in some way, some small piece of yourself for others to see. It is as much a gift to the users as it is a gift to yourself, some temporary freedom from that parenting instinct, or just a freedom in knowing that something you have created or done will affect someone in profound and unseeable ways; in software and hardware, many someones.
So, it is unsurprising that I, in my youth, turned towards computers when my social life went downhill; years of blowing grading curves and being the school "nerd" have made me a cynic; years of living through my computer have made me a developer, and given me the ideas and vision I need to keep my faith, to perpetuate my conception of the way things should be going; it is these "visionary" ideas I hold that makes me continue to be a developer once the product is done, just as it is everyone's. It's the feeling that what you do, the work you provide, is more than just a "stopgap", or hole filling; it's the feeling that the software you've developed is somehow of great importance, something that could really change the way things are, the way things work, the way people think. It's that "Coke and a smile" attitude, that feeling of the machine beneath your fingers, that keeps many going. It's certainly what keeps me here.
Here, of course, meaning the Amiga; which, arguably, has fallen well behind in its ability to run modern applications due to its lack of hardware and software services. I once was one of the lead arguers in the belief that there was nothing wrong with the approach the Amiga's OS was taking; but the more entwined you become in the developer community, the larger the application you're dealing with, the more you realize that you're fighting a very special uphill battle, one that not everyone, on every platform, needs to fight.
Which of course leads me back to that aromatic, rotting corpse we've come to know as Commodore International, and the hope that some form of life feasts on it. Personal hopes, of course, are for CEI, whose ideas seem to be more in line with a modern attempt at building a company capable of competing as something other than a video game system. Regardless, one MUST require of whichever company that manages to hit the Amiga pinata and win the candy that real work on the OS must be done, and done quickly. Because it isn't the developers that stand in the Amiga's way, it's the Amiga. It's the proprietary technology that once held its head high that causes it to swing low; it's the Amiga's undeveloped OS that now trails in its ability to provide developers with a simple, effective, and work-reducing environment from which to build the large applications that today's information market wants to be sold -- something that, you will note, NeXTStep is most often heralded for. The tools developers have on that platform is unmatched, and I'm sure even Microsoft will be playing catch-up for years.
With the lack of development tools, the poor documentation provided with the OS, the death of AmigaMail, the absence of the AmigaWorld Technical Journal, and even that of AmigaWorld itself (not that it was ever truly informative), I dub this the Amiga Report Technical Journal, hoping to fill all of the above voids. I'll do my best to provide documentation on the new OS functions that have been so misused or underused; pen allocation, BOOPSI, DataTypes, and more. Not all at once, mind you, or I'll run out of readers; and I won't hit you with a big brick, because these aren't necessarily easy, or obvious concepts to swallow; as well, I hope to grant you all with the blessing that is my wisdom, vision, and intellect, with a side order of cynical comments. Because there's more to the Amiga, and the Amiga's OS, then just AutoDocs and example code; there's vision. And that vision has been lost by many, and it is the one thing the Amiga needs most to survive; without the vision, there would have been no Amiga in the first place.
Without vision, there will be none in the future.
Sincerely,
Gregory R. Block, Editor of the Amiga Report Technical Journal