An assembly of system software programmers from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Ashton-Tate gathered in San Jose last week to talk shop, reports Microbytes Daily, and the consensus was that C is the language for systems development – at Microsoft we program only in C, said Charles Simonyi, C now and C forever; the programmers also debated the virtues of single-person programming versus team programming, with most of the assembly coming out as firm individualists, although John Warnock of Adobe Systems said that his company had found a three-person programming team was the most effective, and others acknowledged that major development projects were too large for one person to bring in in a reasonable time-frame; there was also disagreement about whether it was appropriate to use subroutine libraries, with Andy Hertzfield of Apple Computer saying I consider myself an artist – if I were another kind of artist, a writer for instance, would it be right for me to go out and buy a paragraph here, a chapter there, and include them in my book – would it still be mine?
