#: 5409 S15/Hot Topics
    21-Jul-90  07:35:08
Sb: #5394-Is Basic out of date?
Fm: Mark Griffith 76070,41
To: Mike Knudsen 72467,1111

Mike,

>Yes, memory protection hardware is great for catching wild stuff. But it also
>may keep you from reading system variables, writing directly to I/O devices,
>and other things that we "shouldn't" be doing, but sometimes you have to for
>speed.  I hope we don't have to on the MM/1.

I hope that you will become an advocate for "doing things right" on the MM/1
and not resorting to or telling others that you must use "bad ways" to get your
programs to work at the speed you think necessary when you port them.  I know
we've talked out this before on the CoCo but I feel it will become even more
important with the MM/1 since it is a Level I machine, and because the user
(and programmer) base is potentially much larger.

This will become critical when network software is developed and the remote
graphic terminal ideas we discussed on LISTSERV are available.  Your position
as a well known programmer will serve to show others that these sort of tactics
are "bad, bad" (in my best G. Bush voice) and not encourage others to try it. 
We all want to see well behaved software that is portable and easily
upgradeable.  Cheating in the real human world always gets its just rewards
sometime and I don't see any difference in the programming world.

I am personally counting on your support in this area.

Mark