PicForth 1.0 is released

Samuel Tardieu <sam@rfc1149.net> wrote in message news:<87oei63r7x.fsf@beeblebrox.rfc1149.net>...
> >>>>> "Guy" == Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com> writes:
> 
> Guy> Try removing the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> at
> Guy> the top.  It is optional in XHTML, and triggers a bug in IE that
> Guy> makes it go into quirks mode rather than standards-compliance
> Guy> mode.
> 
> Yes, I know this one, but I'll be honest: I don't care if MSIE users
> have a problem because of a MSIE bug. I think it will be a disservice
> to the community as:
> 
>   - other browsers (especially Firefox) are freely available, much
>     better in my opinion and more secure
> 
>   - if people prefer to use MSIE (for any reasons, they may for
>     example prefer the look and feel of MSIE over other browsers one),
>     they should ask their vendor (Microsoft in this case) to get the
>     bug fixed and get the standards respected
> 
>   - the more people use MSIE, the more sites will continue to be
>     MSIE-only - this is against my interests (as MSIE can't run on any
>     of my systems) and against the interests of the Free Software
>     community
> 
> Thanks anyway for your suggestions Guy, I'll keep them around if I
> really need them.
> 
>  Sam

Funny, I am looking at your page in Internet Explorer and it looks just fine.
I guess it is easier to write quality products for the Mac.  :)

And I concur.  As consumers we should demand quality in our software,
as with any other product.

Well done on getting to 1.0!  Now if only it supported the 18xx PICs we could
use it on our rocket....    (http://psas.pdx.edu/)

Ian Osgood

Ian Osgood wrote:

>Funny, I am looking at your page in Internet Explorer and it 
>looks just fine.  I guess it is easier to write quality 
>products for the Mac.  :)

I know you meant it as a joke, but it turns out to be true.
When I study bug lists for MS IE, MS Office, etc. I often find 
a note saying that the Mac version works fine.  I hardly ever
find the opposite.

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:55:18 +0000, the renowned Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:

>
>Ian Osgood wrote:
>
>>Funny, I am looking at your page in Internet Explorer and it 
>>looks just fine.  I guess it is easier to write quality 
>>products for the Mac.  :)
>
>I know you meant it as a joke, but it turns out to be true.
>When I study bug lists for MS IE, MS Office, etc. I often find 
>a note saying that the Mac version works fine.  I hardly ever
>find the opposite.

Jaguar owners are like that too. 


Best regards, 
Spehro Pefhany
-- 
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

"Guy Macon" <http://www.guymacon.com> wrote in message
news:10p5e444op4b4b@corp.supernews.com...
>
> Ian Osgood wrote:
>
> >Funny, I am looking at your page in Internet Explorer and it
> >looks just fine.  I guess it is easier to write quality
> >products for the Mac.  :)
>
> I know you meant it as a joke, but it turns out to be true.
> When I study bug lists for MS IE, MS Office, etc. I often find
> a note saying that the Mac version works fine.  I hardly ever
> find the opposite.

    Windows is a fiendishly difficult OS to write programs for (and don't
even think about mentioning device drivers).  When I started working on my
Windows Forth system, I expected to spend maybe a few weeks (or at most a
few months) learning what I needed to know.  I can get a handle on most
operating systems is a few days.  It took months to learn enough to even
know where to start.  If I had even dreamed that it would take several
years, I would have run away screaming before I started.

    Microsoft's motto should be "complex answers to simple problems".

-- 
-GJC [MS Windows SDK MVP]
-Software Consultant (Embedded systems and Real Time Controls)
- http://www.mvps.org/ArcaneIncantations/consulting.htm
-gchanson@mvps.org

"Gary Chanson" <gchanson@No.Spam.TheWorld.net> wrote in message news:<iLAkd.2911$4U1.1760@trndny05>...
> 
>     Microsoft's motto should be "complex answers to simple problems".

Maybe they have two separate sets of documentation: The simple stuff
used by their own programmers and the obfuscated mess they ship to
outside developers.

Brad

"Gary Chanson" <gchanson@No.Spam.TheWorld.net> writes:
> "Guy Macon" <http://www.guymacon.com> wrote
> > Ian Osgood wrote:
> >
> > >Funny, I am looking at your page in Internet Explorer and it
> > >looks just fine.  I guess it is easier to write quality
> > >products for the Mac.  :)
> >
> > I know you meant it as a joke, but it turns out to be true.
> > When I study bug lists for MS IE, MS Office, etc. I often find
> > a note saying that the Mac version works fine.  I hardly ever
> > find the opposite.
> 
>     Windows is a fiendishly difficult OS to write programs for (and don't
> even think about mentioning device drivers).  When I started working on my
> Windows Forth system, I expected to spend maybe a few weeks (or at most a
> few months) learning what I needed to know.  I can get a handle on most
> operating systems is a few days.  It took months to learn enough to even
> know where to start.  If I had even dreamed that it would take several
> years, I would have run away screaming before I started.
> 
>     Microsoft's motto should be "complex answers to simple problems".

The Evil Empire reincarnate!

M$ likes to produce a complicated, overblown, buggy, klooj
solution to problems that others have solved a decade or
more previously.

The hardware manufactuers' must love M$, though.

"Brad Eckert" <nospaambrad1@tinyboot.com> wrote in message
news:7d4cc56.0411110852.670c0c30@posting.google.com...
> "Gary Chanson" <gchanson@No.Spam.TheWorld.net> wrote in message
news:<iLAkd.2911$4U1.1760@trndny05>...
> >
> >     Microsoft's motto should be "complex answers to simple problems".
>
> Maybe they have two separate sets of documentation: The simple stuff
> used by their own programmers and the obfuscated mess they ship to
> outside developers.

    Yes and no.  They use the same database but there are some articles
which are only available to insiders and bigger customers (and MVPs).  The
only real difference seems to be that the more restricted articles cover
things which are less stable and harder to support.

    They don't intentionally obfuscate anything.  They do make a substantial
effort to document as much as possible (within the limits of what they're
willing to support) and make it as clear as possible.  Most of the bug
reports I file are on errors or omissions in the public documentation and
most result in improvements being made.

    Probably the biggest difference between what information is available to
independent developers and insiders is that insiders have direct access to
the source code.  Outsiders (including MVPs) at best get very limited access
to it.  I have access to only the source for the core of the operating
system and then only with tools that are almost unusable (which reminds me
that I need to get my smart card renewed).

    If Microsoft developers really did have access to significantly better
documentation, I expect that the quality of their code would be
substantially better.  On the other hand, throwing away numerous levels of
complexity would make even more difference.

-- 
-GJC [MS Windows SDK MVP]
-Software Consultant (Embedded systems and Real Time Controls)
- http://www.mvps.org/ArcaneIncantations/consulting.htm
-gchanson@mvps.org

Gary Chanson wrote:
> Probably the biggest difference between what information is available
> to independent developers and insiders is that insiders have direct
> access to the source code.  Outsiders (including MVPs) at best get
> very limited access to it. 

The worst thing that happend was with Windows 95 and the corresponding
MS Office. This replaced about half of the operating system, because
Windows 95 was too buggy to run MS Office (hey, they even had an
off-by-one error in the polygon fill routine!).

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/

Kelly Hall wrote:

> Guy Macon wrote:
> 
>> The website does NOT have any quality issues.  It is well-written
>> XHTML that validates perfectly, and the design has a nice clean CSS
>> based approach.
>>
>> It is Internet Explorer that has quality issues.  IE doesn't follow
>> the standards.  Alas, a lot of people use it, so the web designer must 
>> find workarounds for Microsoft's buggy code.
> 
> 
> Oh my!  The most common HTML rendering tool doesn't follow the 
> "standard".  Whatever shall we do?  I guess we'll just stamp our little 
> feet and cry.

I'd rather be on my feet than on my back.


-- 
Mike Page BEng(Hons) MIEE                 www.eclectic-web.co.uk
    "Ask a Liberal Democrat, while he still knows everything"

Mike Page wrote:
> Kelly Hall wrote:
> 
>> Guy Macon wrote:
>>
>>> The website does NOT have any quality issues.  It is well-written
>>> XHTML that validates perfectly, and the design has a nice clean CSS
>>> based approach.
>>>
>>> It is Internet Explorer that has quality issues.  IE doesn't follow
>>> the standards.  Alas, a lot of people use it, so the web designer 
>>> must find workarounds for Microsoft's buggy code.
>>
>>
>>
>> Oh my!  The most common HTML rendering tool doesn't follow the 
>> "standard".  Whatever shall we do?  I guess we'll just stamp our 
>> little feet and cry.
> 
> 
> I'd rather be on my feet than on my back.

That must make it hard to sleep.  Anyway, when I encounter problems in 
IE that affect pages I write, sometimes I attempt to express the same 
notion using different syntax -- still adherent to the W3C 
recommendation (XHTML Strict is my preferred flavor), but rendered 
correctly by IE.  In one case, although the problem was manifested only 
on IE due to a bug in that browser, I found that there really was an 
error in my page that triggered it.  Specifically, it had to do with the 
so-called IE "feature" of identifying the encoding and specifically 
ignoring the declared encoding.  In my case, both my page and IE were 
technically incorrect.

Ed