To: "Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com>
Subject: RE: MASM references
From: "Terry Leeper" <tleeper@microsoft.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 15:28:17 -0800

Hi Jonathan,

MSDN subscribers already have access to C 1.52.  

You are correct.  There are many factors to such a proposal.  One thing
that we often face here is cost of support.  Even when we declare that
something is "not supported", we know internally that if we allow
something on our website or other means of distribution that we would
need to support it or risk a ton of wrath.  This often goes against the
grain of what we're trying to accomplish.

As far as the need for 1.52 goes, I guess I don't understand why you
would prefer this over the current compiler.  If it is cost, then I
would refer you to our Standard Edition, which runs for $99 (you also
get MASM with that and its documentation, BTW).  The only real caveat is
that the compiler does not optimize for retail builds, meaning it is not
meant for real production.  However, this does serve well for academic
and teaching purposes.  It also supports inline assembly.

-Terry


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Kirwan [mailto:jkirwan@easystreet.com] 
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2001 10:41 AM
To: Terry Leeper
Subject: Re: MASM references

Terry,

Hi.  Thanks again for helping clarify things for me.  I appreciate
being allowed to ask these kinds of questions with some idea of
getting rational and human replies.  If it's okay, I'd like to get
straight to a hope I have and get your reaction to the idea:

I enjoy writing articles and teaching.  I would like to do more in
writing about using assembly together with QB and/or QC and or VC++
1.52C, as part of learning about computer architecture and concurrent
programming.  For many teenagers I've worked with before, QB (and
perhaps QC) make excellent starting points for them.  They can
actually get things happening quickly enough to keep their interest.
And as time goes on and they get better at it, some develop further
interests and would like to dig deeper.  It's at this point that
mixing in assembly may be appropriate.

There are semantic limitations in QB; quite a few, actually.  It's
powerful, but kids should be exposed to a broader base of concepts.
So I'd like to see QC or VC++ 1.52C as another possible tool available
to them, to illustrate problems which are more difficult to solve in
QB, yet are rather nicely handled with C or a limited form of C++.

I don't like to emphasize the use of debuggers much, because I believe
depending on debuggers tends to encourage sloppy thinking and sloppy
design practices.  But there are times when a debugger is more than
invaluable.  Debuggers make good teaching tools, handled well.

I would like to be able to point people to a Microsoft download site
where they could actually get an unsupported copy of QB 4.5, ML 6.1 or
similar, VC++ 1.52C, QC, LINK, and perhaps some version of CV.  I'd be
happy to work out the details of which to use for across-the-board
compatibility between them and which linker arrangements would be
needed.  I'd also be happy to write some articles to support using
them and provide some framework for learning from them.  Perhaps even
PWB might be properly set up for this?

I believe I can be relied upon by Microsoft to cap (limit) any human
resource expenses in setting this up.  I can handle the myriad details
required to smooth the process for others and I'm more than happy to
write web pages to cover a broad range of likely questions and host
those elsewhere, relatively permanently.  I'd just like to see this
work out.

I also suspect that this might be a great use of retired products
which are no longer directly revenue-generating.  An open hand, in a
sense, for these products would add some positive goodwill for
Microsoft (even if the door is tightly shut, regarding support for
them.)  At least, so I imagine.

I honestly have very little understanding of the broader issues you
have to consider, looking at questions like these.  Perhaps you might
need to know more firmly what I'm willing to do to help in making this
a reality.  But does any part of this sound feasible to you?  Or is it
all just a pipe dream of mine?

Jon