home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
Text File | 1991-03-06 | 3.5 KB | 70 lines | [TEXT/GEOL] |
- Item 6625378 18-Feb-91 10:53PST
-
- From: CHADWICK1 Attain, Dan Chadwick,PRT
-
- To: SCHMUCKER1 Schmucker, Kurt
- ALCABES Alcabes, Harvey
-
- cc: MACAPP.TECH$ MacApp Technical
-
- Item forwarded by ALCABES to EYES
- LITTLE
- TOM.CHAVEZ
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Sub: System 7 & MacApp in Pascal
-
- Kurt-
-
- Attain Corp. was founded by myself and Alan Albert after we sold Nashoba
- Systems and FileMaker to Claris in 1989. We have under development a new
- product which we expect will be marketed by a well-known Macintosh-only
- publisher. We currently plan to ship in mid July 1991.
-
- Of course, we and our publisher would like to support System 7 as fully as
- possible. In specific, we need support for AppleEvents and Balloon help. I
- had hoped that MacApp would support this in time for our shipment, but as
- System 7 has slipped, and our development has not, it seems we have only three
- choices: ship without System 7, support it ourselves in a limited way, or wait
- for MacApp 3.0. IN ALL THREE CHOICES ANY DELAY IN MACAPP 3.0 WILL AT LEAST
- DELAY OUR SUPPORT FOR SYSTEM 7 & POSSIBLY OUR PRODUCT AS WELL.
-
- We currently are using the Think environment & do not yet plan to give it up.
- The increased productivity is incredible. (I developed FileMaker first using
- the Lisa Workshop and then using MPW.) If Pascal and especially Think Pascal
- are not supported, we may be forced to stay with MacApp 2.0.x & add
- enhancements ourselves. I believe that there may be enough developers to
- support this possibility, but am not sure. (Ironically, if we do abandon Think
- and Pascal, some of the Windows 3.0 portability issues will be removed.)
-
- While I cannot say that Attain's product will reach the same popularity as
- FileMaker (currently about the number 5 business application, according to
- MacWorld), I do feel that we have an important new business productivity tool,
- one that deserves Apple's full development environment support.
-
- C may be a good systems programming language. C++ may even be a good
- object-oriented systems programming language. But C++ does not provide what I
- value in a good APPLICATIONS programming language and Pascal does.
-
- I do not want to prevent others from programming in C++. However, C++ users
- elected to use MacApp knowing that it was implemented in Pascal. I HAD NO IDEA
- THAT MACAPP MIGHT ABANDON PASCAL, AND IF I DID, I WOULD NOT HAVE USED IT.
- PASCAL, RELATIVE TO C++, GIVES ME MORE PRODUCTIVITY THAN MACAPP DOES RELATIVE
- TO NON-MACAPP-BASED OBJECT PROGRAMMING.
-
- I have been a very loyal Apple developer. Nashoba committed resources to the
- Macintosh when conventional wisdom said such commitment was a ill-considered.
- I implore Apple to remember that, by its own admission, it is the third party
- developers that have piloted Macintosh to success. I do not like my loyalty
- and investment to be rewarded by abandonment.
-
- <Dander up> I have invested my own money in Attain. Productivity is more than
- a philosophical discussion - it is a dollars and commonsense discussion. Each
- week that our product is delayed, each co-marketing opportunity with Apple that
- we are excluded from (because of no system 7 support) costs me hard cash.
- <Dander down>
-
- Please do not abandon Pascal in MacApp because I cannot afford it.
-
-