🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2AF02742.2E2E@deneva.sdd.trw.com> blanford@spf.trw.com (Ronald  
P. Blanford) writes:
> environment.
> 
> The development environment you get with Borland C++ for DOS is  
> miles ahead of NeXT in terms of compilation speed,  
> interactivity, ease of use, debugging ability, and project  
> management.  InterfaceBuilder is good, but Unix tools in general  
> lag far behind commercial DOS offerings for usability.

I don't agree with this sweeping statement. I develop on the two platforms  
which you speak of (NeXTSTEP on a cube and Borland C++ on a 486/33 - black  
of course). I assume you mean the Windows version of the Borland stuff and  
not the DOS stuff. If you meant DOS, deduct 5 points from each Borland  
score involving user interface and ease-of-use (I know some of these go  
negative :-). I find it breaks down as follows:

Compilation speed: Higher in Borland, but not so much that it's a  
compelling motivator.  Borland: 10    NeXTSTEP: 7

Interactivity: Overall comparable. NeXT does it with a number of different  
apps so it's slightly less synchronous but it works quite well. Borland: 8    
NeXTSTEP 7.

Ease of use: The NeXT is MUCH more suited to the way that I work. To my  
mind the Borland product is clunky and gets in my way far too often. The  
Borland editor is not something I'd like to spend a lot of time in.  
Borland: 3    NeXTSTEP: 9

Debugging ability: In terms of tools I'd say they're comparable for most  
things. But the lack of memory protection etc. makes the PC far worse. If  
you want a graphical debugger with more features than gdb and its front  
end in Edit, use Gdb.  Borland: 4     NeXTSTEP: 6

Project Management: Again I'd say NeXTSTEP wins. What sort of apps do you  
create? The project management in Borland wouldn't even support some of  
the elements easily incorporated into NeXTSTEP development. Borland: 5    
NeXTSTEP: 8

"Interface Builder is good"??? If you grok objects, palletes and organize  
your projects well it's more than good - it's a way to develop real  
running apps many times faster and more enjoyably. At a minimum it  
promotes developing better user interfaces because you can change so much  
so quickly without affecting code. Borland: 0   NeXSTEP: 9

Final Score -- Borland: 30   NeXTSTEP: 46

For the record I was not a UNIX hacker prior to getting into NeXT  
development. The integrated environment I'd used prior was Think C on the  
Mac. I think I have a fair idea of what an integrated development  
environment should be.

Borland C++ is a nice package - certainly better than anything else in the  
PC world. But seriously, NeXSTEP surpasses in terms of most of the areas  
you brought up AND has the richest set of usable and re-usable objects  
provided by any OS or development system vendor. If you added in scores  
for the object libraries and general quality, NeXSTEP would reap an even  
healthier margin.

And it's free with every machine.

Gordon

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Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
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