XPL FUNCTIONS VS.

[chet.gottfried@xxxxxxxx]

XY-> We all know what a pain it is to write programs in XPL. That
 -> said, XPL is *great* for what it was designed--customizing the
 -> Xywrite user interface. Most of these programs are fairly small.

Joel, I thought XPL was fun.

XY-> But it is awkard for more complicated text processing. For
 -> example, I needed to extract footnotes and leave numbers in the
 -> text before submitting translation files via modem.

XY-> Another client needs two spaces after a period. A shareware
 -> utility called SNR (search 'n replace) does this fine, and I
 -> tell it to ignore periods in such uses as Dr., U.S., Aug., etc.
 -> (Of course perl could do this, too)

XY-> Trying to do this in XPL would be a nightmare.

Why should it be a nightmare? Carl D. has probably already
included such a program in his smart set. If not, all you'd have
to do is define the letters/word preceding the period and compare
it with a string of abbreviations.

XY-> My conclusion here is that life will be much easier if you don't
 -> try to use XPL in ways it's not really suited, and encourage
 -> people to find other ways.

It's more a matter of approaching a problem. If you can provoke a
situation with yes-and-no alternatives, you have a program.

XY-> IMO, the much maligned *bloat* factor in WP programs comes from
 -> trying to use one program for everything.

It's a little more than that. A WordPerfect Win 6.1 program takes
into account all the previous selections of a user, as in a
search. Thus if a person had previously specified a
case-sensitive word and a program is next run that doesn't
specify case one way or another, the search will be
case-sensitive. And let me tell you, there're a lot of factors in
WordPerfect. In XPL you get what you write.

However, I agree with other parts of your messages, inasmuch as
Xy becomes more complex, it entails more work to make the
customization just right.

--Chet
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 ? SLMR 2.1a ? Art + write + dtp = chet.gottfried@xxxxxxxx