On 23/04/02 11:45, "Smith, Bradley" <bradley.smith_at_artisansw.com> wrote:
[snip!]
> It's amazing. They have the technology and hardware to produce something
> great yet somehow they manage to make the device completely unusable.
>
> My colleague is now looking at ways to overcome these problems. I'll let you
> know what I find out.
>
> So close, yet so, so far...
I think that people forget easily that Apple had among the brightest
engineers when the Newton started to take form. One of them is Steve Capps.
If people are idolizing Steve Wozniak when it comes to hardware, then Steve
Capps certainly deserve the same praises when it comes to software. He was
directly behind the initial Newton interface and he's the one that made it
work with the hardware. It's great to have some nifty hardware, but, as Brad
points it out, hardware alone is not all. You need to have the software that
will make great use of the hardware, in a transparent way, to the benefice
of the user. Steve Capps is also one of the original creator of the Finder,
one of the most copied application in the world of software. Bill Atkinson,
Andy Hertzfeld are also great software engineers. They use to be the best of
their time. Now, Capps is probably getting very bore in some advance group
at Microsoft, which hasn't produced anything I can remember for the few
years that he's been there. Atkinson used to be the guy behind Magic Cap, I
don't know where he is these days. Idem for Hertzfeld.
Anyway, I think that software engineers these days deserve as much
recognition as hardware engineers. It's harder these days, however, to
recognize great software engineers because software has become bloated,
production-oriented and uninspiring, except for a few cases... Sigh!
-Laurent.
-- ===================================================================== Laurent Daudelin Developer, Multifamily, ESO, Fannie Mae mailto:Laurent_Daudelin_at_fanniemae.com Washington, DC, USA ********************** Usual disclaimers apply ********************** candygrammar n.: A programming-language grammar that is mostly syntactic sugar; the term is also a play on `candygram'. COBOL, Apple's Hypertalk language, and a lot of the so-called `4GL' database languages share this property. The usual intent of such designs is that they be as English-like as possible, on the theory that they will then be easier for unskilled people to program. This intention comes to grief on the reality that syntax isn't what makes programming hard; it's the mental effort and organization required to specify an algorithm precisely that costs. Thus the invariable result is that `candygrammar' languages are just as difficult to program in as terser ones, and far more painful for the experienced hacker.-- Read the List FAQ/Etiquette: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Read the Newton FAQ: http://www.guns-media.com/mirrors/newton/faq/ This is the NewtonTalk mailing list - http://www.newtontalk.net
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