The state of software design; too dependent on existing concepts?

["Kelli Halliburton" <kelli217@crosswinds.not>]

"Paul Grammens" <grammens@svn.net> wrote in message
3d0a30aa@news.svn.net">news:3d0a30aa@news.svn.net...

> Well, Jeff's post was enlightening, anyway.  I never realized that he
> opposes free access to abandon-ware because this forces all those
commercial
> developers of Apple II software to make better software.  That's quite a
> concept. As if developers would flock to the platform to make all that
money
> if it weren't for abandonware.  I think if people were given an old IIgs
or
> other Apple and found out they'd have to pay real money for software to
try
> it out... it would go right in the trash.  At this point, the only thing
> keeping the Apple II going is the minimal cost of the hardware and
software.

I think it was more Jeff's point that access to abandonware keeps software
authors *in general* from improving on past implementations. Freeware,
shareware, commercial... whatever.

Bev has made some very interesting improvements to AW. She's a rarity. She's
also a very rigid woman in many ways. Nothing personal, Bev, but you are
quite inflexible about some things (and I'm talking about things entirely
unrelated to CTT or to piracy -- example: kicking lurkers off the mailing
list). That's irrelevant to her efforts, though. I wonder what a complete
Beverly Cadieux rewrite of AW from the ground up would look like?

Some of the old apps from the days of yore could stand to be updated. Games
too. But it's not always possible to do what Bev has done and secure a
license to adapt an existing piece of software. In fact, it may not
necessarily even be a good idea. Apple II programs are not usually
fiendishly complex; the 6502 architecture doesn't really support that.
There's nothing wrong with reinventing the wheel. If that had never been
done, we'd probably all still be rolling things along on logs, and pulling
the back one around to the front when it came loose.

Having, at best, limited access to existing code forces authors to think
about the programming they're doing. As a result, they may in some cases
actually come up with better answers than the old programs offered. Whether
the resulting programs are offered as commercial, shareware, or freeware is
irrelevant, although given the current state of the market, it would require
a truly outstanding piece of software to warrant its being offered on a
commercial basis.

I think that was Jeff's point. I'm sure people will take issue with it; it's
even possible that I've misread Jeff's intentions completely and even he
will take issue. But it seems to flow logically from the original post.