Re: Results of RTF test

["Paul Camp" <pjcamp@coastal.edu>]

> > 15 reporting, 11 full successes (7 Windows, 2 Macs, 1 Windows and Mac, 1
> > Next), 2 nearly full successes (both on Macs using WriteNow), 2 failures
> > (both on Macs).  I was surprised--and a little depressed--to find that the
> > only non full successes were on Macs.
>
> I guess I'm not really surprised by this.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but as
> I understand it, MS Word is a WIN/DOS application which has more or less a
> translator built on top of it to allow it to work on Macs.  IOW its not
> native to Macs.  
> Chip

Not exactly. It is native but it is not efficiently compiled. The 
code began life as Windows C code which was then more or less 
automatically translated, replacing API information for Windows with 
equivalents for Mac. This is always going to be less efficient than 
code written from the ground up for the Mac platform. It is also 
going to be much larger. After all, the machine will never make all 
the best possible choices. It is sort of like automatic translation 
from English to Japanese. Direct substitution of words gives 
something that makes some sort of sense but it would work a lot 
better to take the idea and rewrite the sentences in the new tongue.

On the other hand, it *is* cheap.

Likely, the biggest problem with RTF stems from (a) the small Mac 
market compared to Windows, resulting in smaller development teams 
and (b) Microsoft's historic lackluster support for RTF technology, 
somthing which could have been one of their more important assets.

Paul J. Camp                   "The Beauty of the Universe
Assistant Professor of Physics  consists not only of unity
Coastal Carolina University     in variety but also of 
Conway, SC   29528              variety in unity.
pjcamp@coastal.edu                    --Umberto Eco
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