🚀 go-pugleaf

peter@fourier.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan) wrote:
>
>Just curious - what made you choose Windows as the platform?
>From what I've seen, the major successes in terms of the
>"integrated environment" approach to PC compilers have been
>those that run from DOS.  I recall that the Borland C users
[...]

There are a number of reasons why I chose Windows:

 - I use Windows! I actually originally wrote the program for my
   own use, and chose to market it as an afterthought. I'm using
   Modula-2 (under unix) as a part of my uni course, and when I
   installed GPM/PC on my home PC I found it ridiculously difficult
   to use. And so it made sense to develop :-) GPM for the platform
   I use most.

 - Given that the program is more of a visual thing than hard code
   crunching stuff, developing under Windows is by far the easiest 
   way. Sure, you *can* create interfaces under Pascal, C, Mod-2 and
   the other DOS languages, the final result is pretty dodgy given
   the huge amount of work you have to put into it (compared to 
   Windows)

 - Despite your comments, I believe almost all people prefer using
   Windows (or similar like OS/2 or X) to command-line things like
   DOS and unix. It is simply possible to accomplish far more in less
   time with less instruction. I admit that programmers are the 
   least likely to believe this - these people just like pain, I guess...
   Pretty soon everyone will have to admit to themselves that DOS is
   dead. The release of Win95 will be the final dagger to DOS.

>OK, so I have a bias against Windows.  But it seems to me that
>many programmers - as distinct from casual computer users - have
>a similar bias; and, when marketing a compiler or compiler
>interface, the only people you're targetting are programmers.

Yeah, this is a risk I'm taking. But I'm a programmer, and I like
a nice interface. If people like typing pathnames on the command
line, their welcome to. I'm just filling a market niche for people
like myself.

:-)

_______________________________________________________________
Tom Hollander
e-mail: tholland@pcug.org.au          
or try h3023355@toscanini.anu.edu.au
www: http://www.pcug.org.au/~tholland

This message will self-destruct.