My $ 0.02 on this issue...

* I (within reason) couldn't care less about the size of the final
application I'm building. Broadband is dominant, HD's are HUGE, and
computers are shipping with 512 and 1 GB of RAM. 9 MB of one-time growth due
to the 200x framework is nothing in today's computing environment. A
compiler that does a better job of stripping unused framework objects would
be nice, but it's not the priority level of the speed issue and bugs.

* I care very much about speed issues though when it comes to compiled apps.
I wish RS would take a long, hard look at this, maybe bring in an outside
compiler expert, really profile their framework (especially GUI stuff), and
get their compiled code speed up. It's not terrible, but it's not as good as
it could be. Improving this would automatically boost their IDE speed, which
is killing two bugs with one fix.

* The sluggishness of the new IDE does bother me. My largest project is
still in 5.5 and will stay there until I get a stable release out. First
things first. I plan on upgrading my PC when I move the project into 2006. I
won't upgrade my Mac until RB is a universal binary (no point). Again, the
speed is not terrible if you have modern equipment, but judging from what I
see on the screen I know certain operations could be more tightly optimized.
The sluggishness is just enough to drag on my productivity, but not enough
to really kill it.

* I don't care much about project file size as long as it doesn't grow with
each save. (Haven't seen this, will have to look for it.) I'm more concerned
about correct saving each time with external files and how long it takes to
save since I do this often.

* FWIW, REAL is not the only one. I'm surprised there aren't more developers
screaming over Quartz, which is an utter and complete dog that sucks CPU
cycles and routinely has its tail handed to it by Win32 GDI and the old
QuickDraw. And while the latest versions of OS X are picking up speed, this
is due as much to improving processors as to Apple. You need a G5 to make OS
X feel as snappy as OS classic did on a G3. OS X, compared to OS classic, is
a memory and CPU hog, and that's after 5 years of optimizations and work by
Apple!

Sometimes I wonder if RS is stretched a bit thin. Maybe they just need to
pull in another couple developers to focus on bugs and speed issues.

Daniel L. Taylor
Taylor Design
Computer Consulting & Software Development
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.taylor-design.com


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