Of all the technical journals I receive about the Macintosh, Digital VAX, and computing
in general, all pale in comparison to your d e v e l o p . Please send me a copy.
--Steve Salika

In your last issue, Curt Bianchi tells me to beware of how the Memory Manager grabs
my Pascal object's handles. Then, in another article, Richard Clark tells me that the
Memory Manager has a secret life and that I should be careful when I pass it pointers.
My question is, should I ask the Memory Manager to take a blood test before we get
serious?
--Concerned in Palo Alto

Although you are right to be cautious about getting serious with the Memory Manager,
there is really no need for a blood test. The very articles that you mention present
clear guidelines for having safe yet fulfilling, uh, "interactions" with the Memory
Manager. These guidelines, judiciously and conscientiously (and enthusiastically!)
followed, provide all the protection you will need.
--Dave Johnson

After using both on-line documentation and hard copy for a while, I prefer hard copy.
It is easier to read, and more immediate. I like the concept of having complex and
interrelated documentation on- line with cross referencing a click away. When you
obtain instant response time, on-line documentation will  be invaluable.
--Thomas Bernard

STEPS FORWARD
Thanks for all the fantastic work on d e v e l o p --I love it, and being  an American
abandoned in England, it is one of the most informative journals I get over here.  I do
have a couple of gripes (read, "winges" in England) about the software used to display
the articles.

The control panel windoid is a complete pain--it doesn't fit on a  13-inch monitor
without obscuring the text window unless you move it halfway off the screen, so you
have to be continually moving the panel around the screen. I then decided to print out
some of the articles, but that isn't much easier, because you either have to know the
page where each article begins, or navigate there one page at a time.

It would be nice to see a control panel which is vertically oriented so that it can fit
along with the text window on a 13-inch screen, and to also include a button which
jumps to the next article--moving to the first and last pages is not really that useful.
I think it would also be much more useful if the text for each page fit in a window
rather than having to scroll each window as well as forward each page.
--David L'Heureux

As you know, we're entering an era in  the Macintosh world that revolves around
electronic publishing. Many of the standards and interfaces that are so well defined in
the Macintosh desktop metaphor don't exist when you're creating interactive electronic
magazines (Hyperzines). Developer Essentials is a living document. It will
continually grow and change as we begin to determine what works (and what
doesn't)--things like how you use sound, how and when you should animate an icon,
what's the best use of color, where is the best place within the virtual magazine
metaphor to put a control panel windoid and have it not be a complete pain. Ya know,
things like that.

The reason we've put the automatic feedback capabilities into d e v e l o p is to get your
ideas, criticisms, and thoughts. We don't have all the answers and will be
experimenting with new ways of representing data. We hope to have more defined and
stable human interface standards regarding the use of electronic media like CD-ROM in
the near future. In the meantime, look for experimentation, a few mistakes, and some
very open minds looking to you for feedback and suggestions here at Apple.
--Scott Converse
Electronic Media Group Manager

Issue 2 of d e v e l o p is great.  The articles are fun, informative, and well written. I
think you are off to a great start.

But I must strenuously object to your rampant waste of paper for the sake of "design."
Almost every page has at least 25 percent white space; many have more. I don't know if
you have an aversion to trees or just a lack of concern for our children, but your
choice in this matter does not reflect Apple's generally ecological view.  Apple is a
leader in reducing waste in manufacturing, but you insist on creating waste in your
magazine.

Please, please take a look at redesigning your pages for future issues. Apple's
publications are often very well designed, but yours is the only one that screams
"paper waste"  on every page. It is an easy step that will help the whole world.
--Paul Hoffman

I'm looking into using recycled paper for d e v e l o p (in fact, it started out as a
requirement for the first issue), but I've run into conflicting information. I recycle
my paper (both here at work and at home) and am actively looking for ways to help d e
v e l o p fit into the ecological scheme of things. Our printer recycles all of the waste
(generated from printer make-ready, and overages), and the paper we print on, like
most paper these days, has a recycled component. Some people I've spoken to advocate
recycled paper as the answer to all of our problems; others contend that the chemicals
used to de-ink the paper damage the environment more than they help to save it. If
you've got ideas about whom I could talk to to hear the real scoop on recycled paper
(from environmental impact to lasting  qualities), I'd love to hear them.

Meanwhile the page design is intended to leave room for notes (which many developers
have told me they make), and for readability. The column widths must allow for
full-page width code listings but must also work with readable line lengths. I'm sorry
that it screams paper waste to you, and I will talk to our designer about ways in which
we might adapt the design.
--Louella Pizzuti

STEPS BACK
When we find technical errors in previous issues of d e v e l o p (or when you point
them out to us), we make corrections in the text and code for the current Developer
Essentials disc. You can also find corrections in this section of the journal.

So far, we want to let you know about these changes:

On page 75, the abstract should read "Through the Slot Manager system software, the
Macintosh can read the declaration ROMs in NuBus slots and processor slots, like those
in the Macintosh SE/30. This article tells you what you must know about NuBus
addressing and the structure of correct declaration ROMs to successfully debug the
ROM. It walks you through the structure of an example declaration ROM and gives
common errors and strategies for debugging declaration ROMs."

On page 91, "Assuming the board is in slot $B, the above format block (residing on
byte lane 3)" should be byte lane 0.

On page 149, the procedure MyVScrollCallback appears twice. The second one should
have been MyHScrollCallback, as indicated in the comments. Thanks to Sam Roberts
for pointing this one out. For those of you who didn't even notice, shame on you.

There was a pair of bugs in the "Heap Demo" source code distributed with  Issue 2 of
develop, one of which prevented the source code from compiling. The   Developer
Essentials disc contains a corrected version (HeapDemo 1.3.4) In order to compile the
old code, you should remove the reference to "UMonitor" at the start of HeapDemo.p.
The UMonitor unit is a debugging tool that was used during the final checkout of the
Heap Demo, and though I removed the calls to its code, I forgot to remove the USES
reference.

The other bug was in the menu enabling logic. With the bug, you could crash the
program by closing the memory window, and deleting all blocks. The menu enabling
logic has been changed to fix this problem. Thanks to the diligent readers who pointed
out these problems. I'll make sure you have more articles to nit-pick in the future!
--Richard Clark

COMMENTS We welcome timely letters to the editor, especially from readers wishing
to react to articles that we publish in develop.   Letters should be addressed to Louella
Pizzuti, 20525 Mariani Ave., M/S 75-3B, Cupertino, CA 95014 (AppleLink
Pizzuti1). All letters should include name and company name as well as address and
phone number. Letters may be excerpted or edited for clarity and space.

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