🚀 go-pugleaf

   I'd get Stony Brook at this time.  TopSpeed is presently not usable
in its present release, and it'll be another 6 months or so before you
see anything that is.  Stony Brook can be reached at 805-496-5837, or
written to at 187 E. Wilbur Suite 9, Thousand Oaks CA 91360.
   Their compiler gets Extremely High Marks; so much so that Logitech
has *dropped* development of their own compiler and bought Stony Brook's
under the counter to supply it with their own Multiscope debugger!
   JPI's current optimizing compiler is nothing but a hunk of junk
compared to Stony Brook; I own both and have used both so I know
whereof I speak.  The JPI V2.0 release served only to make JPI Modula-2
look very much like C (you even have to preface some library calls
with an underscore).  It doesn't link to aftermarket libraries like
Stony Brook and the manual is even in Greek in spots.  I'm not kidding;
there is greek text in the JPI manuals.  If you buy JPI now, this is
what you will get.
   JPI is *not* microsoft compatible and will *not* link with the majority
of aftermarket toolkits.  Stony Brook links with anything I or anyone
else has ever tried.  Stony Brook is very stable at this point, and will
be introducing a 386 version in Release 3 about the time that JPI gets
to release 3.0, which will barely begin to clean up the release 2.0 mess.
   Stony Brook just keeps looking better and better.
   What happened to JPI?  It was some wild hare notion that someone at
JPI got that they'd develop this common code generator, just change some
front ends, and then have this neato system that would do 8 different
languages, mix and match, from the same environment.
   Neat idea?
   Only it didn't get worked out right.  The C isn't compatible wiht
most anyone else's C because they didn't check out the Microsoft/DOS
standard before doing it, then they based the Modula-2 on it, and so
JPI is locked off in some arcane little world where you have to wite
everything yourself, graphics libraries and toolkits included.
   The JPI is horrible because of this mix-up, and them being rushed to
get it out the door.  It's not that JPI doesn't care, or was trying to
rip off old customers; I've talked to principals at JPI and they're
really squirming because it turned out such a mess.  They did have good
intentions, and things just went wrong on them.  My best guess is that
they bit off 8 mouthfuls at once and choked on it BigTime.
   JPI will be great once they straighten out the mess.  But I don't
think that will happen in six months, or maybe even in 18 months.
   I'd seriously recommend Stony Brook for now.

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