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To: INFO-M2%UCF1VM.BITNET@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Amiga Modula 2
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
In-Reply-To: <14.Dec.89.13:18:28.A100E3@UK.AC.SALF.E>
Organization:
Cc:

In article <14.Dec.89.13:18:28.A100E3@UK.AC.SALF.E> you write:
>
>I have an Amiga A500 1 meg and would like to program in M2 on it.  However
>I am at a bit of a loose end as to which one to use.  The options seems to be
>as follows:
>
>Use the PD on FISH something or other ( anyone know ?????)
>Buy M-2 Developers by M2S ( rough price 110 uk sterling )
>Buy Benchmark M2          ( ----------''--------------- )
>Wait to see if HiSoft (uk) license a US Modula 2 (currently rumoured)
>
>Questions:
>1: What is The PD one like (M2Amiga??????) and do you need an Amiga.lib?
>2: Which is better M-2 Developers or Benchmark
>3: Does anyone know which/if etc the one HiSoft is trying to license is
>   and how it compares with the above?
>4: And lastly When is the new Douglas Adams book coming out????
>   ( I know its not really Modula 2 but most of this letter is.)
>
>David J BENNETT           ( D.J.BENNETT@uk.ac.salford.syse )

I would like to recommend Benchmark as a very good development environment.
The compiler is extremely fast and very robust. You don't have to use their
editor, but, I found the editor to be more than good enough to make it very
worthwhile to overcome my normal reluctance to learn another editor.
The Amiga interface modules are complete and well put together. (I have not
purchased the additional "Simple Intuition", "IFF", and "C" support libraries).

And the additional Benchmark Source Debugger is now something I couldn't
live without. It gives every easy run-time debugging control and inspection
for Benchmark programs.

I think the Benchmark package is one of the most polished software pacakges
available on the Amiga.

One thing I do not have experience with, however, is how it runs on a
floppy only system with limited memory, as I run it on an A2000 with
hard disk and 3MB. One meg memory is probably plenty; a one-floppy
system is going to need disk-swapping for sure.

My other Amiga M2 experience was a couple of years at first struggling with
the TDI compiler, etc. In contrast, this package was the opposite of
Benchmarks: the compiler was constantly crashing or producing incorrect
code, the editor was poorly integrated with the compiler and pretty
useless for editing otherwise, the post-mortem debugger failed about
70% of the time, the Amiga Interface modules were riddled with errors, etc.
In all, the three or four new versions I received from TDI over the time
period tended to introduce neary as many new problems as they fixed old
ones.

I mention my TDI experience because it helped me decide between Benchmark
and M2Sprint when I decided to get a better M2. I have no experience with
M2Sprint, other than trying out their demo disk and seeing that their
package appears to be quite similar in integration and speed to the
Benchmark one. I also noticed that the M2Sprint developers are the
same people who were the TDI developers. Needless to say, I easily
decided on Benchmark.

I have no connection with Benchmark, and no grudge against TDI. This
is simply what I experienced.

            - Tom Breeden
              tmb@virginia.EDU      -> Internet
              tmb@virginia          -> BITNET