It seems that these groups, and NeXT in general, do indeed behave like a biological organism. You prune them and let each branch grow as an individual and soon have a healthy tree that is vibrant and alive with many strong healthy branches. Each can live without the other, but they are all dependent on the central trunk. Now we just have to hope that our tree will be allowed a little light to flourish in the dense forest in which we have collectively chosen to sprout.
Glenn Rempe
Tucson, Arizona
Ricardo J. Parada
Tucson, Arizona
Just for laughs, compare the glossy brochures on the NeXT pro-duct line as they appeared before JPEG hardware was cut (when we bought our machine), and after it was cut. The brochures and spec sheets look the same from one meter away, down to layout and copy. Closer up, however, you see the new ND photo has a vacant connector where the C-Cube chip was, and the new ad copy and specs tiptoe around the missing chip. Historical revisionism.
Dylan Kohler
Glendale, California
David L. Neumann
Engineer, Exxon Research
Houston
Visual BASIC is basic. Not being a structured Ð let alone object-oriented Ð language, it has none of the advantages of an object-oriented language, such as extensibility, reusability, and maintainability. Interface Builder comes with a rich set of object kits that dramatically reduce the amount of time required to develop commercial-quality applications. Though Visual BASIC does speed the development of an application, nobody would expect to use it to create a large, commercial application.When you hit its inherent brick walls, you must go back and rewrite your application from scratch. Interface Builder has no walls because the application is fully extensible at any time. Using Interface Builder never prevents you from using the Application Kit directly in Objective-C. Ð Ron Lang, director of software product marketing, NeXT Computer
1. US West is not interested in ISDN Ð or not very interested.
2. The Olympia, Washington, test project was abandoned.
3. US West has another system they are debating about implementing rather than ISDN.
4. If I forced them, they might actually hook it up for several hundred bucks. They had no idea of how much it would cost each month.
My assumption is that ISDN is being reserved for Betty and Bob Billionaire. And that outfits like Microsoft are, or will be, developing some sort of other teleconnection system.
Satellites?
Tom Hicks
Seattle
Your experience with your absentee telephone company mirrors my experience in Cambridge, where I have been waiting more than three months to get a residential ISDN line installed. Nevertheless, some Bell operating companies Ð most notably Pacific Bell, Bell Atlantic, and Bell South Ð have been making great strides in ISDN. If you lived in Mountain View, California, you could get ISDN installed in your house tomorrow for less than $30 per month. Ð Simson L. Garfinkel
Mark Warren
Palo Alto, California
This is one of several letters we received noting omissions from our list. We will update our list next year. We also heard from several executives at NeXT, who told us they were surprised by how accurate the list was. Ð NW
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