Is it too hard to program for the Apple?

[dog_cow@macgui.com (D Finnigan)]

I think (I've probably been doing too much of that lately) that maybe one of
the reasons why there aren't loads of "exciting" projects coming out for the
Apple is that it's too hard to program on the Apple, especially compared to
programming on today's Mac or PC.

Let's take a look at some reasons why I have this suspicion:

a.) The Apple's screen is small, and there's no mouse.

This naturally makes program editing difficult when today, we're used to all
sorts of fancy editors on big screens, with macros, easy cursor control and
all sorts of extras. I don't even use the fanciest line editor for Mac, I
just use TextEdit which doesn't even number lines, and I still find it
easier to enter new code and make corrections than on the Apple. And of
course, it's easy to pull up old files and save new ones. We've got huge,
fast hard drives.

Note to self: I need to take a look at what editors are out there for the
IIgs.

b.) Aside from Applesoft, there's no easily-accessible high-level language

Applesoft is easy to use. I've written tons of silly games and trivial
experiments in Applesoft. But I haven't written anything substantial or
non-trivial. There's also the speed problem.

Now, of course there is Pascal and K&R C for the Apple (and ANSI C if you've
got a IIGS and ORCA), which I'm still exploring, but just off the bat I've
found them to be slow, and the lack of documentation isn't helping (but I
might not be looking hard enough for docs). There's still the editor
problem.

c.) It's hard to get data in and out of the Apple.

This is a big problem too, especially if someone is using a cross-compiler
to avoid problems a and b as listed above. There's still no comprehensive
solution which works for everyone. So if you program entirely on the Apple,
you need to figure out how to get it onto a disk or out a serial wire. No
matter which way the data is going, you need to get a machine with serial
ports, or an Ethernet card for the Apple, use an emulator to make disk
images, or get an old Mac which can write ProDOS floppy disks.... To me,
there must be a better solution out there, but what we've got now isn't the
worst, either.


Am I right in any of this? Anyone else agree/disagree or have more to say?