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Re: Avatar

James L. Brookes writes:
>
>Woah, that's not at all what I meant :)  Sorry if I was unclear.  What I
>was attempting to point out is that the majority of applications from large
>publishers today are written in an HLL (generally C) for maintainability
>and portability. 

This is part of what I meant when I said that the Avatar seems to be
ignoring traditional 'wisdom' and starting over fresh.  I think we
all realize that HLLs are preferable to assembly, at least when ease
of programming is the concern.  But if you look at what has happened
to microcomputer software since HLL programming has become standard
then it is not at all clear thar this is any kind of advance.  Now
we have 12 meg word processors that are slower than their text mode
equivalents.  Games have become less compelling as lazy programmers take
lazy approaches to designing them.  And so on.

>Well, sure.  But the availablity of a good C compiler that can generate
>fast, solid code, is terribly important.  And it's tough to write such
>a beast for the '816.  

Well, for starters, having all graphics operations offloaded to another
processor is going to make a world of difference.  Second, a C compiler
is not as important as you think.  If you want to be able to run tex or
other packages, then definitely--and I'm sure some quality C compilers
will become available.  But there are alternatives.  Have you
ever seen Action! for the Atari 8-bit machines?  It's a C-like custom
designed HLL for the 6502 which gets very close to the speed of raw
assembly language.  Or what about a specially designed BASIC, like
QuickBASIC or PowerBASIC on the PC?  They provide top notch programming
environments IMO.  And finally, assembly language programming is a
real breeze if you've got quality tools.  Assemblers on Unix systems
and the PC are, for the most part, poorly designed by people with
a severe distaste for assembly language. 

IMO, the Avatar will not be the computer for everyone.  If you revel
in the old computer industry saws ("faster is always better," "assembly
language is too hard," "C is the ultimate programming language") then
why not get a PC or a Sun?  The Avatar is a bold experiment, one doomed
to fail.  But a bold experiment, nonetheless.

(I should add the disclaimer that I have absolutely no idea
what Bill H's personal plans and philosophies are.)

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se