At 06:02 PM 4/12/99, you wrote:
>look around some more, read some objective comparisons. there's more to the
>story than "free!" vs "what, i have to pay money for something?". it's kind
>of silly to say that compilers should inherently be free. i'm not even
>going to address that one.
>
>gcc has no support. you have a problem? go read a book on compilers and
>then fix the compiler. (yes, gcc has bugs).
At a list price of $360 US. The Codewarrior compiler and development
suite does NOT achieve a good value/dollar ratio. Under Windows the
IDE is buggy, the compiler is unreliable, and the port looks like a
Mac application. If I wanted to use a Mac application, then I would
get a Mac.
Forgive me for being blunt, but your statement is no more objective than
the one that prompted it. Nor is mine. How can an individual be perfectly
objective anyway? I have used many development environments, and few
have been as "flakey" (hows that for a subjective term?) as the
Codewarrior implementation for Palm OS.
Some suggestions for 3COM/Metrowerks, or whoever is driving the Palm OS
version.
1 - Give us a native Windows implementation. This Mac port thing is
sluggish and unreliable. I would hazard a guess that most of your
developers use Windows nowadays.
2 - For a lower price than Codewarrior, I can get the Microsoft Visual
C++ (oooh there's that evil word again) development environment. It
provides a far richer and robust feature set. Either improve your
content and reliability, or reduce your price! You are not playing in
the Mac arena anymore, where people are accustomed to paying too much
for too little.
It is indeed silly to say that compilers should be free. It is also
unnecessary to accept anything but near perfection from a compiler
and development tool chain. These tools are the first link in a long
chain that leads to a good product.
