Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!mintaka!weiss
From: weiss@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Paul G. Weiss)
Subject: Re: Arity's so-called upgrade
In-Reply-To: todd@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu's message of 16 Mar 91 19:25:51 GMT
Message-ID: <WEISS.91Mar19151349@toucan.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Organization: MIT Lab for Computer Science
References: <11768@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
	<WEISS.91Mar13134309@toucan.lcs.mit.edu> <11954@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
	<1991Mar15.050522.21309@athena.cs.uga.edu>
	<11987@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Date: 19 Mar 91 15:13:49
Lines: 112

Let me try to respond to the flurry of recent posts that have resulted
from my follow-up to Todd's original post.

Several people said that this forum is indeed an appropriate place to
discuss vendor-related issues.	I never said otherwise.  What I said
was that it is no substitute for direct communication, and I listed
several direct ways in which folks might talk to us.  Frankly, I was
concerned that if I responded to the content of Todd's post here I would
waste the time of the majority of readers of comp.lang.prolog and be
forced to use net resources to promote our product.

I was struck by the unfairness of Todd's post, given past
dealings.  Todd lives in Hawaii, we are in Boston.  His reasonably toned
letter (his words - and having read the letter I would not disagree)
is dated March 4 and his less reasonably toned post is dated March 5,
hardly enough time for us to receive the letter, let alone respond.
I mention this because I understood Todd's reference to his letter to
mean that we had been given the opportunity to respond and had not.  My
first thought was that the letter was sitting on the addressee's desk,
as she had been out sick for some days.  It was only when the letter
arrived a few days later that I knew what was going on.

Todd, if you had given us the courtesy of coming to us first, as Richard
O'Keefe assumed you had, you would then have much better information to
include in your posts.	Richard writes:

> Note that the poster who started this thread *had* gone to the vendor
> first.  Going to the net afterwards was a perfectly sensible thing to do.

Given the timing of the post, you did *not* come to us first, even though
your post implies that you have.  That is what is so unfair about it.

Todd raises a variety of issues in his three posts and in his letter.  His
letter has been answered and I will not respond to it here.  As for the
content of his posts there is much that Todd says that is accurate and
much that is not.  I will agree that Arity's documentation leaves a lot
to be desired and does contain some inaccuracies.  I should note that
the most recent review (AI Expert - Jan '91) described our documentation
as "two well-written manuals," even though it points out the problem with
examples that do not work properly: "Some of the predicate examples do
not work properly ... but most of the examples function properly and are
very helpful for learning the predicate functions."  We attempt to address
the problem with readme files - not a perfect solution, but a workable
one.  To reprint the manuals for this release would have both delayed the
release and raised the cost considerably, and Todd already feels that the
price is too high (I will address pricing issues below).  In fact, the
next "release" of the manuals will most-likely be on-line documentation,
a format that is a lot more easily updated than printed documentation
(not to mention cheaper).

Todd's other major point has to do with whether or not version 6.0 is
a "major upgrade."  Todd equates this to whether or not the product has
a "modern programming environment (when compared to Borland C++, Quick C,
Actor, etc.)."  Indeed, Arity's programming environment is not as full
featured as those mentioned, and we have never claimed otherwise.  We do
provide a windowed editor, debugger, etc. and our environment is quite
usable, but not as powerful as those mentioned.

However Arity's focus in the Prolog market has never been on slick
development environments.  We have always been targetted at the
professional, production programmer.  Even though our products are
often used for education and research we consider our primary market
to be programmers who are producing applications to be distributed either
for sale or for internal use within an organization.  To this end, the
bulk of our efforts go into performance and programming features and a
much smaller effort goes into environments.  We concentrate on Arity/Prolog
code being as small and fast as possible and embedible into a wide
variety of applications.  Measured by this yardstick version 6.0 is
indeed a major upgrade - it is a significant extension of Arity/Prolog
performance and power.	In order to build V6 we have modified practically
every module in the system.

Todd also objects to the way we priced the upgrade: "... outraged by what
Arity has foisted on its customers as a $127 (including shipping) upgrade."
In his next post he says: "Borland, on the other hand, charged me
$99+shipping to go from Turbo C++ 1.0 to Borland C++ 2.0."

I think our products are an excellent value.  If you are interested enough
to call us, we would be happy to discuss with you the details of the
upgrade and you can decide for yourself whether the upgrade is worth it.
We don't "foist" our products on anyone.

The comparison with Borland is highly misleading.  Especially since their
pricing structure did not allow them to stay in the Prolog tools business
for very long.	Let's face it folks, good, bad, or indifferent, there are
a lot more C and C++ programmers out there than Prolog programmers.  This
means that the average Prolog programmer must pay a larger proportion of
the development costs of good development tools if such tools are to remain
available.  It does neither Arity nor its users any good to price ourselves
so low that we can't afford to remain in the business.

Again, I must stress that the best way to voice your approval or
disapproval and to influence future decisions at Arity is to communicate
with us directly.  I'm sorry Todd feels that he needs to muster support
by organizing a letter writing campaign to back up what he has to say.
A customer with complaints is not "shouting in the wind," as Todd suggests.
User feedback is a major source of direction for new versions as it has
been for V6.

Please don't send me bug reports through posting or E-mail.  Our technical
support function (which is excellent, and cheap!) is administered through
our own BBS, FAX, telephone or U.S. Mail.  Again, here are the numbers:

    BBS:    (508) 369-5622
    Fax:    (508) 371-1487
    Phone:  (508) 371-1243
    Mail:   Arity Corporation
	    29 Domino Drive
	    Concord, MA 01742

-Paul Weiss
-Arity Corp.
