Re: GS vs MAC Finders (was My 6.0.1 bugs)

[David A Lyons <dlyons@apple.com>]

In article <22os8u$47o@obelix.tsg.com> Bill North,
north@spso.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
> The MAC Finder is not the ultimate model around. The GS Finder has
learned
> and applied some lessons the MAC should emulate:
> 
> 1. File copying is abysmal on the MAC. No matter how much memory you
have,
> it only copies in small (512k?) chunks. Of course memory management on
the
> MAC is abysmal in general (no matter how much memory you have, an
> application's "preallocated" memory size can't be exceeded while it's
executing).

These days it's only -kind of- true.  Most applications do behave like
you say, but they -can- allocate most of their memory from "MultiFinder
memory", which is all the memory not being used by any application.  The
MPW compilers can use MultiFinder memory, so you can avoid allocating a
super-huge amount of memory to MPW.

> 4. GSOS had an "organized" system folder before the MAC did.
> [...] Did the MAC learn from GS development [...] ?

Hard to say.  I suspect they invented subfolders independently, when the
number of files in the system folder got totally out of hand.
 
> The GS Finder is newer than the MAC Finder. Rather than "trying to make
> the GS Finder act like the Mac Finder", they both should act in a
useable
> manner.  Apple should not be reluctant to change the MAC Finder to match
> the GS if the GS is better. Whether they ARE reluctant I can't answer...

Well, there is certainly one ex-GS-Finder-engineer who is now a Mac
Finder engineer.  Things can take longer to change on the Mac, though,
since there are more people involved inside Apple, -and- there is a huge
customer base to be concerned about.

Dave Lyons, dlyons@apple.com
Mr Tangent

My opinions are my own, not Apple's.