Re: SIS (was: Q: AppleTalk GS to MacSE)

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article Paul Schultz <pschultz@med.wayne.edu> writes...

>I think that the problem you mention above is attributable to the
>fact that the last group of young programmers who learned to code
>on a IIgs as kids in high school finally graduated from college
>in 1992-94. Now, I'm afraid, the well has run dry. Young people
>no longer have a IIgs at home (and they are fast being replaced
>in many public schools).

    I'm aware of that, and I'm also aware that it's usually the
younger crowd that are more actively into programming, but that
doesn't mean older people can't program too. I think another big
problem are the benefits of it, if your looking for profit there
is very little or no market to tap anymore.

    Anyone still programming for the IIgs these days is doing it
strictly for fun or fondness of the machine. Unfortunately, even
that is starting to dry up with cheap and very powerful PC clones
around and so many people flocking to them (even if you program
just to show off your talents, increasingly there is less of an
audience in the Apple II world to see your efforts :/).

>The last group of young programmers was the group that got fired
>up when GNO 2.0 first came out. Sadly, this is the group that
>I consider the last batch of youngsters who actually brought a
>IIgs with them when they entered college. I dare say it would
>be quite rare to see a young budding computer programmer bringing
>a IIgs to a college campus these days.

    Well they're not completely gone, Ninjaforce and Brutal Deluxe
are still around (and probably the last left). The thing is they're
busy with school, jobs and other things to spend that much time on
the GS, though I've been getting concerned since both groups have
been pretty quiet lately. At least Ninjaforce has a major game on
the horizon.

>New IIgs software died down when this last group started getting
>jobs in the real world and could no longer spend the time needed
>to produce the cutting edge IIgs software we saw in the early
>90's (examples of which you mentioned in your post). I also
>believe that this may be one of the reasons why GS/TCP has yet
>to see a public release.

    Speaking of GS/TCP, has anyone spoke with Derek in the past
couple of months to see what stage he's at in development of it?
The last thing I heard was "any day now" and that was about 2 years
ago. I know quality software takes time, but I'm wondering if he
still plans to release it since there would be little profit to be
made at this point (I'd buy it, but how many die-hard GS people are
left out there?). At some point you have to ask yourself, is it
better to have something buggy (a beta-release) or wait another
year or two and have nothing at all in the meantime?

    I don't mind waiting so much now that I have a PC that can talk
TCP/IP (SLIP or PPP connections) but for someone who only has just a
IIgs, having GS/TCP will be essential if they want to stay connected
to the Internet soon. I was in that boat less than 6 months ago, so
I was feeling pretty anxious (there are relatively few shell ISP's
left in my area).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca