Subject: Re: Estimate COST of building <chnio.h>

From: "HU Bo, IFT Munich, +49 89 54759129" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 08:49:04 -0500

Some aspects against the usage of application-level Chinese I/O
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As a software author of both system-level and application-level Chinese
(and Japanese) I/O routines I'd like mention some aspects against your
call for <chio.h>:

- "They have got no ETen!"
So they may buy one or use KC or something else. Or some other products in
the GB-World. The routines by some applications' programmers are definitely
worse and more expensive. Generally, the authors of system-level Chinese I/O
routines have more experiences and can focus themselves to solve Chinese I/O
problems, much better than one, for example, who is a database specialist.
And, since the system-level products may be used for many other people, they
become more cheap. Or, what would you say to someone who tells you that he
has got no DOS?

- Portability
Remember: an application dealing with basical I/O problems is never portable.

- Make your application user friendly
Users want to focus to their actual problem. On the other hand, everyone uses
nowadays more than one application. It must be a horrible vision that one has
to switch to another Chinese I/O interface each time when he switches to
another program!

- Reusability
You hope that everyone on the market who wants to develop an application will
also develop a Chinese I/O. But the reality is that (almost) nobody does. So
be happy that someones have developed some system-level solutions which can
be reused by many applications.

- data interchanges
A system-level Chinese I/O provides a more problemless data interchange between
different applications.

- Copyright problems
Software products are coproductions by many individuals. It is a utopy to force
all people write FreeWare products together with the souce code published. It
is a communist thought. System-level Chinese I/O routines are a good compromise
between the interest of the authors of I/O routines and the users (and futher
application authors). The motivation to develop a software should never be that
the available one is too expensive. As I pointed out before, "self-sufficiency"
is always much more expensive.

- <chio.h> is not a good interface
As a matter of fact, I/O routines like prinf, scanf are very rarely used in
professional programs under DOS. If you really want to repeat the work that
many authors have done before, try to begin with some more basic routines, or
try to jump to a windowed Chinese I/O system (Like my <easywin.h>. There was
also some one before you, as you see!).

Bo