3 ms·
True, if IBM's development tools were any indication. Circa 1992, IBM's OS/2 development environment was called C-Set, and, in spite of being a 32-bit compiler,
by GnarfGnarf 9y ago
True, if IBM's development tools were any indication. Circa 1992, IBM's OS/2 development environment was called C-Set, and, in spite of being a 32-bit compiler, was inferior to Microsoft's Programmer's Workbench (precursor to Visual Studio). For instance, after a compilation, if you double-clicked on an error message, it would open up the source code in a separate editor window, in a proportional typeface. You could not trigger a compilation from this window. You had to make your change, save & close, then go back to the compiler window. Backwards.
There was no Resource Workshop for designing dialog boxes visually. You had to write all the statements in a text editor, and wouldn't see the appearance until compiling and running the program. This slowed down development.
While debugging, I recall trying to step into the GUI part of the application code. This locked up the computer so bad we had to re-install OS/2, a tedious process requiring 22 diskettes.
The IBM documentation was so inscrutable that even for ver. 2 of OS/2, we had to refer to Microsoft's ver. 1 manuals. IBM's support gave an interesting insight into OS/2's downfall. My client had an expensive OS/2 support contract with IBM. The client's contacts were two guys in the PC support section. When I required technical support to answer some obscure and specialized questions about OS/2, it didn't make sense to get the client guys involved, even though they were supposed to be the only official go-between with IBM. So I called IBM with the client's authorization, and impersonated one of the support techs. After a few calls I slipped and used my name. The IBM guy was livid and tore a strip of me, saying that as an independent contractor, I had no business blah blah. Here I was just trying to get a customer up & running.
Authors of their own misfortune.
- pjmlp 9y agoAlthough SOM was much more advanced than COM, it had even support for metaclasses. IBM also tried their luck to have a Smalltalk like IDE for C++, but it was too heavy for the typical hardware configurations on those days. It was the fourth version of Visual Age for C++ OS/2.
- yuhong 9y agoThat OS/2 2.0 debacle is my favorite topic, and this was just the beginning of the entire fiasco. That period was not long after the MS OS/2 2.0 SDK in 1990-1991 (which used MS compilers) and before some of the really unethical tactics MS used to attack OS/2.