Date:	Tue, 16 Jul 1996 18:35:00 -0300
Message-Id:	<1.5.4.16.19960716160146.1a1f665e@dmeasc.rc.ipt.br>
Mime-Version:	1.0
To:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>,
	Colin MacDonald <ccjm AT dstn06 DOT dct DOT ac DOT uk>
From:	Cesar Scarpini Rabak <csrabak AT dce03 DOT ipt DOT br>
Subject:	Re: DJGPP HELP!!!!!
Cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com

At 13:51 16/07/96 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
>
>On 16 Jul 1996, Colin MacDonald wrote:
>
>> and if you
>> spend five minutes going through the documentation, you'll discover 
>> that DJGPP is definitely NOT a good package if you are learning C. I 
>> have been using UNIX C for about five years now, and I still have 
>> trouble with DJGPP.
>> Try something like Turbo C/C++ or Visual C,
>
>With all due respect, I disagree.  I don't see any reason why DJGPP
>couldn't be a tool to learn programming at least as good as Turbo C.  If
>you see any trouble with the docs or other tools, or the necessary setup,
>that would prevent people from using DJGPP as such a tool, please tell.  

Just to add to the theme, we (and I myself am the isntructor) here at IPT
are giving internal training in C in an introductory course using DJGPP.

Whereas its "unixism" at first makes some people that had exposure to more
"conventional" DOS tools find it "strange", for newcomers it does not bring
ANY diffciulty!

Besides, all the hassles of memory models are gone. The enforcing of not
accessing directly the hardware ( a practice almost encouraged in certain
real mode DOS programming books) is more easily enforaced with newcomers. 

I had read in a trade journal that an author had managed even to use DJGPP
as the compiler for its C programming book and (that probably was with ver
1, but I think it could be done with v2) was able to put the minimum system
in a SINGLE 1.44 floppy that accompanied the book. I regret I missed the
name of it!

>Personally, I don't know about anything in Turbo/Visual C that makes them 
>a better learning tool.  Are they better documented?  Are they better 
>supported?  Do you get your questions answered faster and better by their 
>support staff?
>
>

I think Eli, that the anwer for this question is primarily a market one,
there are dozens of books which more or less explicitly intend to teach or
include in its examples how to use Turbo (Borland) C/C++; the same for
another dozen for Microsoft, which incidentally also own a Editing House of
its own "Microsoft Press".

Things may change when the DJGPP Book Project comes out!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cesar Scarpini Rabak                      E-mail: csrabak AT ipt DOT br
DME/ASC                                   Phone: 55-11-268-35221Ext.350
IPT - Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnologicas Fax:   55-11-268-5996
Av. Prof. Almeida Prado, 532.  Sao Paulo - SP 05508-901 BRAZIL
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