Re: Is it too hard to program for the Apple?

[lyricalnanoha@dosius.ath.cx (Steve Nickolas)]

D Finnigan wrote:
> 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.

I don't think so o_O

> 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.

There was a mouse card for the //e, and mice for the //c.  And I don't see
80x24 text mode as small o.O;

> 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.

If you can cross-compile, it's somewhat easier.  (I do a lot of my work that
way.)

> 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.

I think having an easily obtainable 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy drive addon, and
maybe a SD addon with an OS that uses FAT, would probably alleviate that. 
Pie in the sky though?

-uso.