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Re: Avatar

In article <1993Feb10.195941.19726@news.columbia.edu>
stc7@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Steven T Chiang) writes:
>In article <1lbhunINNl9k@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu> jamesb@ecst.csuchico.edu
(James L. Brookes) writes:
[...]
>>This is sheer nonsense.  Maybe we can get some of the SNES programmers
>>to write Pagemaker, unix applications, etc in assembly.  Right.
>>
>>BTW, those "really good 65816 programmers" you note are mostly writing
>>Super NES code now.  Do you really think that they'd want to change?
>
>	I don't know if assembly language is the way to go, but I
>wouldn't say that SNES programmers couldn't or wouldn't be able to
>write utilities.

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.  You'd have to get a lot of very talented, very workaholic
programmers to translate a significant fraction of these programs into
native ('816 assembler) code.  And the money simply isn't there.

>	Basically, I think it boils down to where the money is.  If I
>could get 35k a year programming the SNES, it's a bit more enticing

Exactly.

>than programming the GS on royalties.  If the Avatar is a success, and
>writing software becomes profitable, I don't think it'll matter what
>language the people have to write in...

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.  Which was one of the things Soenke was originally
pointing out way back when :)

>Steven Chiang                  Order - DreamGrafix:  The ONLY 16/256/3200
>stc7@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu       color paint program for the Apple IIGS.
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|          James Brookes            | Inet: bb252@cleveland.freenet.edu |
|``What, me worry?'' - A. E. Neuman |   jamesb@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu |
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