Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!scea!greg_labrec@interactive.sony.com From: Jack Copper Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.programming.codewarrior Subject: Re: Metrowerks is listening! Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 20:16:59 -0400 Organization: ArcanaTech Lines: 49 Message-ID: <33668F29.276C@earthlink.net> References: Reply-To: impmeister@earthlink.net NNTP-Posting-Host: Cust57.Max10.Cleveland.OH.MS.UU.NET Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; U) CC: support@metrowerks.com Eric, Glad to know you're listening... My first impressions of the IDE and documentation aren't real good. For me, there's nothing worse than ambiguity regarding simple things when going into a new development environment (I have considerable experience with MS VC and Borland IDEs, as well as some others). The irksome things: 1. Instructions concerning updating the Sony libraries explicitly say copy the include *directory* and the lib *directory* from the Sony CD to a Metroworks directory- HOWEVER, the target directory already had a lib and an include directory, created by the Metroworks install. So, one is faced with: gee, am I really supposed to trash the existing directories, or am I supposed to copy the *contents* of the Sony directories into the corresponding Metroworks directory. Sure, I figured it out, but there's quite enough truly new, different stuff to think about, without having to deal with problems like this. 2. Similarly, the Check project, when opened, uses a main.c that is the JAPANESE version. Though the source itself is english, the comments are japanese (i.e., unreadable garbage). I wasted almost an hour, poking around in the IDE, trying to get the IDE to use courier new font, and was about ready to throw up my hands and decide that the IDE really was garbage, when I stumbled on the same set of sources (sans Metroworks project) in the examples on the Sony CD. There were 2 main.c source files (one with an extension indicating it was Japan). So, the upshot is, the main.c in the Check directory that is distributed by Metroworks is the WRONG main.c. And, figuring out what was wrong caused me (and I suspect will cause others) a lot of unnecessary aggravation. I'd like to give you (Metroworks) the benefit of the doubt... but it's really hard to feel that the attention to detail required to make a solid development environment is there when the first things that a user sees "out of the box" are so botched. I don't wish to appear overly negative, but it really does upset me when I waste time on stuff like this. I suppose my point is, someone at Metroworks needs to sit down with the section of the manual that deals with targeting the playstation, go through the steps, and make sure that the distributed files and procedures match what is on the CD. Also, step through the Online HELP- there are inconsistencies, and (in my judgment) less than useful content for the high level IDE guided tour. As you might guess, when I finally get to using the IDE for writing code, I'll let you know how (if) my opinions have changed. Jack Copper