PP Lament Results

[ken@tiamet.uucp (Ken O Burtch)]

**** (Tired eyes?  Save this post for later -- it's a long one.) ****

I should have made my "lament" of last week a survey.  I wasn't
expecting any responses and instead I got a mailbox full of well-
wishers and frank opinions.
  Sharing the results, these are the top 3 reasons why people say
they haven't bought my Pegasus Pascal (PP) system:

1. It's too expensive.

   There were quite a few reasons why people felt this way.  Many
   students thought that PP itself was too expensive; some felt
   that ORCA/Pascal (required by PP) was too expensive.

2. Never heard of it / Try to promote it more

   There's not much I can say about this.  Resource Central / ICON/
   whatever-their-name-is-this-week has carried it for quite a while.
   I've sent review copies and press releases to every Apple II mag
   I could find (including GS+, who never even mentioned it in their
   "what's new" column -- I assume their pretty much C programmers
   there).  I sent the demo to A2-Central (and I think to BRCC, too).
   When Modula-2 came out, I immediately wrote to all the magazines
   asking them to compare my language against it, and only Shareware
   Solutions II made any mention of it (thanks Joe).

3. I prefer (or have to) work in another language.

   Again, lots of reasons.  Novice programmers don't want to learn
   anything more complicated than BASIC (and I don't blame them).
   Some people use C at work, and want to use C at home.  Still
   others said that nobody is making new software, so why does
   anyone need to buy/learn a new, if more powerful, language?

The rest of the opinions were more or less scattered evenly.  One int-
eresting side note: about the same number of people said Pegasus
Pascal was TOO powerful as said that it wasn't powerful ENOUGH.

---- Responses to Posters ---

I'll answer the email separately.  As I mentioned, Usenet is a little
irratic here (my computer receives it off a friend, who gets his
from a friend, ...), but responding to the posters:

a. It looks good, but I'm a student and can't afford it. (Nathan Mates)

   Oh, sure, make me feel guilty since I'm just out of University. :)
   The obvious way to make it cheaper is by selling a whole bunch of
   copies, and that doesn't look like it's going to happen.  Perhaps
   I can find a new distributor (other than Resource Central) and
   they'll buy a few and let me shave down the price.

b. "After we pick up a few provinces as states, maybe we'll treat you
   better...:)" (Nathan Mates)

   Let's see. Basketball was invented in Canada.  Then there's hockey,
   and the last two World Series, of course.  Then what about John
   Candy, Bill Murray, Lorne Greene, and that funny fellow hanging around
   the alien girls -- ah, yes, Shatner.  The way I see it, Hawaii will
   make a nice province.  You've got too many stars on your flag anyway!:)

c. There aren't that many IIgs programmers anymore. (Kenrick Mock)

   Well, this is probably the most important point of all.  If PP was
   going to be used, it would have to be adopted by the majority, and
   it doesn't look like that's going to happen.  This is sad news for
   IIgs users who are still waiting for new software.

d. It takes longer to get the word out to the people: put a press
   release on the network and ask people to pass it on.  (Philip Lindberg)

   This is sound advice, now that I'm (sort of) on Usenet.
 
e. People taking programming in school should get ORCA/Pascal or PP.
                                                (Eric Ford, David Empson)

   Pegasus Pascal has about as much in common as Pascal and C does.
   If someone wants to learn Pascal for school, I'd have to recommend
   ORCA/Pascal, since it's a true Pascal, right down to some very
   stupid restrictions that modern Pascals have thrown away.
     However, as languages for the IIgs go, PP is easier to learn than
   C or Pascal because the syntax is much more intuitive.

f. Why get a easy-to-use language when I'm familliar with awkward ones
   already? 
                                                       (David Empson)

   That depends on what you'll use the easy-to-use language _for_.
     If you're only interested in learning a new language, there is
   some appeal in those features of PP that were borrowed from languages
   not available on the IIgs.  (eg. spelling error recovery (Ada),
   clean syntax (Turning Plus), complex if/exit/return contructs, ...)
     But I didn't make PP to teach language concepts: I wrote it to make
   IIgs software.  If you intend to write programs for the IIgs for the
   next couple of years (or, for the die-hards, "until the IIgs is good
   and buried"), the time it took to learn a new language is neglible
   compared to the savings during development.
     If you're a programmer who writes short demos or the occasional
   software doodle, perhaps PP isn't for you.

g. Why learn an oddball language when the IIgs isn't forever? (D. Empson)

   I added the cross-compiling features to compensate for the "oddball"-
   ness of the language.  Just because you write a program in Pegasus
   Pascal doesn't mean that you're software is orphaned on the IIgs.
   Programmers who are afraid of the shrinking IIgs market can develop
   a program and then cross-compile it for another machine.
     Obviously the toolbox calls don't get compiled into BIOS equivalents,
   but careful planning can keep the platform dependant stuff to a minimum
   (as I did with Treasures from Heaven, where I kept IIgs-specific stuff
   in certain files).

h. Name the last really good UNIX Pascal shell you've seen.
                                                   (dionisio@infinet.com) 

  It depends on what you mean.  Usually, Pascal on UNIX systems is
  itself a precompiler for C, which means it's a hack job at best.
  (The first Modula-2 I used was a precompiler for VAX Pascal!)
  If your point is Pascal's reputation, I won't argue with you there.
    If you point is that UNIX-like shells like ORCA and GNO are obsolete,
  I won't argue with you either: I was surprised that only one person
  wished there was a integrated desktop environment for PP.  I actually
  have a skeleton version up and running (ie. TML-type environment with
  TextEdit windows, jump to location of errors, and a special "project"
  window similar to THINK Pascal).  But after the responses I've received,
  I'll have to throw that on the Vapourware pile--too much work if nobody
  wants a new language in the first place.

i. Most of the projects I'm doing are for GNO. (David Empson)

   Well, I wish I could help--I don't own GNO, but I've written to
   Procyon (sp?) repeatedly, and they've ignored me.  As much as I
   would like to make it GNO compatible, I can't very well buy GNO/ME
   just to do that.  As you said, I, too, have spent "far too much
   money on the IIgs and am choosing carefully what gets bought from
   now on."
     I hope they've just been too busy to reply and aren't doing
   something like developing their own compiler and are jealous of
   competition -- there just isn't enough IIgs market to have it
   broken apart like that.  Everybody suffers.

j. Most are comfortable with the languages they are using. (David Empson)

   So why aren't IIgs applications written in Applesoft?
   Inertia is no excuse: is anyone really comfortable grappling around
   with curly brackets in C, or having typos taken as legitimate
   commands?

k. Offer special deals so that user groups can get group purchases.
                                                        (Philip Lindberg)

   Pegasoft Partners -- it already exists -- and no groups have signed up
   (Ironically, several individuals have.)

l. Sit back and be patient.                             (Philip Lindberg)

   The hardest advice to accept, and the easiest to give.

Thanks to everyone who posted/emailed me.
(I should probably take another editing pass through this, but it's getting
late and I'm out of popcorn.) Zzzzz....

-- 
Ken O Burtch (Quest/Hoard, Pegasus Pascal, DrawTools): Pegasoft
Alternate email :ncrcan!coutts!tiamet!ken@uunet.ca   : R.R.#1 Honsberger Ave
Bio: 28;BSc,UI,Lang,Games;Toons,Elves,SF,Pizza;Xian  : Jordan Station,ON,Canada
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