Subject: Re: ASCII and BINARY files. Why?
From: [email-masked] (Larry Hall)

31 Jan 1997 07:18:00 -0800
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At 01:05 AM 1/31/97 -0400, Grant Leslie wrote:
>
>> From: Jim Balter <[email-masked]>
<snip>
>> Loose talk about "the average Win95 user", a person who would have
>no
>> interest in these tools, ignores the other end, average and not so
>> average users who are familiar with these tools and want to fully
>take
>> advantage of their capabilities.
>
>These development tools are intended to develop software... This
>software which is created WILL eventually be placed in the hands of
>non-developers. Shouldn't every effort be made to remove as many
>idiosyncrasies as possible _before_ that happens?? From what I've
>read quite a few people would like to make money with the end
>products. 
>
>I don't know exactly what Cygnus envisions for these tools, yet Im
>rather certain the companies they work with will be wanting them to
>create software for people other than just the software developers in
>that company. The tools themselves are not the end to the means....
>

OK, I've been listening to all this for a while and I'd like to lay to 
rest this whole side of the argument.  While I agree that there are end
user issues for any package built with Cygnus tools, this is NOT a relevant
argument in the text/binary file issue.  If an application is built using
Cygnus tools for the general Windows community and if there is a file which
this application makes which should be viewable as a text file (in the 
Windows sense) by any Windows application, then it is the responsibilty of
the APPLICATION that creates the file to make sure that it meets this need.
Regardless of whether the Cygnus tools create, open, read, or write files as 
"text" or "binary" by default, if the end user is going to see it, presenting
it to them in a manner consistent with the Windows environment is an 
APPLICATION issue, not a tools/development issue.  So, can we say from here 
on that the discussion of text/binary files and what the defaults should be,
etc. is limited to how the GNU tools (specifically things like the compiler, 
awk, tar, cat, gzip, etc.) will work with them?   How non-technical Win95 
users, who don't, won't, or shouldn't use these tools, are affected by any 
change should not be part of this discussion.  Agreed?

Larry Hall                                                      [email-masked]
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (617) 239-1053
8 Grove Street                          (617) 239-1655 - FAX
Wellesley, MA  02181                             

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