NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/os/os2/advocacy/10923

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-25 | 3.4 KB

Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:10923 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3421
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!sun4nl!dutrun!donau!dutecaj.et.tudelft.nl!linstee
From: [e-mail] (Erik van Linstee)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (UseNet News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: dutecaj.et.tudelft.nl
Organization: Delft University of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 10:24:00 GMT
Lines: 57

[e-mail] (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Erik van Linstee) writes:

>>>Wuh ? In the MS-DOS market you cannt avoid knowing a lot about
>>>the internals of the system and the hardware. Ever heard about
>>>writing interrupt handlers ?
>>
>>This is very silly. It is not at all necesarry to write an interrupt
>>handler for a regular piece of software. In fact, why would anyone
>               ^^^^^^^
>What about not-so-regular piece of software ? Are you suggesting
>that only "regular" software will be sold after the FTC ?

Well, I don't know anything about your FTC, and I don't quite get
what it has to do with software needing to know about systems
internals.
All I am saying is that software engineers needn't worry about
system internals. Only time critical software needs to grab an
interrupt and as regular software goes this would only be a
comm. package. And even then the designer needn't know about
the internals, because he can use a library that installs an
interrupt handler. Of course he can prefer to do it himself, as
I often do, but that is only because I choose not to use anything
I don't have total control over. this is of course only feasible
if you design a piece of software by yourself.
Summary: application designers need not worry about system internals,
thats what the systems the designers are for.


>>want to go invent the wheel over and over again? There are
>>libraries you can use to do almost anything these days. No need
>>to know about the system at all, except for trivial things, like
>>does it provide graphics or not, does it have a clock or not and
>>such. Still these things can be solved at the high level language
>>level.

>Who wrote the libraries ? An application or an OS programmer ?
>Who is going to decide on it ? the courts ? the FTC ?

As you may know, compilers are not considered applications. They
are the first layer above the OS and the machine language, while
the applications are one layer above that. Libraries, depending
of what they do, are system resources and definitely not applications.
Though it may be considered a grey arrea, it would cerainly take
a systems programmer to work on them.
I don't see what courts or FTC have to do with it. As to what is
what in computer technology, we, computer and system designers,
decide, based on expert knowledge and intelligence, noone else.
(If they could they would per definition BE an expert)

Erik
--
Erik van Linstee   |   Delft University of Technology   |   I'll be back ...
----
   We are god, 'cause only we can create the idea of his existence
   in our holy brains...  (Yello)