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Lifetime of magical moments



from Morris

  Some of this material in this e-mail can be regarded as off topic but I
included it nevertheless because of my enthusiams for magical moments and
things that do work.

   Magical Moments

   I must agree with Leslie that in a sense XyWin is XyClunk, but with
help of Carl I did get something working. Incidentally to my surprise it
also worked in NBWIN which included turning off the errror checking prompt
and including the Beep and prompt message.

   Leslie, I think it was you who gave me the key to use the spell check
command in a program that tags all the wrongly spelt words or the double
insertion of words from the beginning of a file to its end. I included it in
my shorthand expansion program that permits one to type in shorthand and
expand these shortforms and place the necessary spaces after punctuation
marks with one keypress. It also capitalizes the first word of each
sentence, and indents the first line of each paragraph.

   The core of this program, expanding the shortforms came to me long
before I became a member of the XyWrite group, and my only source of XPL
code at that time was through Herb Tyson's book "XyWrite Revealed". His
program Capital.pm gave me the idea but it was only after weeks of trial and
error that I got it working. For me it was indeed a magical moment. Without
the help of a someone I could fall back on I was immersed in endless
experimentation and uncertainty until I stumbled on the solution.

   I have added another feature to this program using the search replace
command that results in certain suffixes to be added to root words such as
using space "m" space to add ment to words such as arrange and manage. A
very fast touch typist may not be impressed by this shorthand program or
using "m" to type data. They consider themselves in the same vein as a
concert pianist who creates music or, for their purpose be able to compose
words faster than the mind can think and direct. Those who type with such
speed are certainly not impressed with voice recognition programs. Who needs
the throat's sound box when the fingers can do all the talking?.

   Leslie you may be perfectly right, an advanced well trained programmer
may not be so thrilled with the writing of programs as he can write them
with ease and speed. But they still are magical in what they do and their
time saving capabilities.

   One of my favourite programs deals with the listing of the thousands of
books which I have in my library both in South Africa and California. After
listing all these titles in lower case this short program capitalizes the
first letter of each word of the title except for the buzz words such as
"of", "the", "or", "and" plus many others.

   I would be interested our hear from other XyWriters who write Xpl code
to describe in a few lines what they regard as their most favourite program
written by them and why. Even one will suffice.

   Here I speak of magical moments in my diversions in programming and
harnessing the computer - the most fascinating, useful and wonderful home or
office toy tool that man has ever invented. One may regard aerodynamics
enabling planes to fly and satellites to enter outer space or the principles
of displacement which allows large steel hulks to sail the seven seas as the
pinnacle of man's most useful inventions. Others may argue that harnessing
of life's pristine and wild energy - electricity as the spark that added
endless improvemts to all that has been invented. It certainly led to the
telephone which made the internet possible.

   Though I have run 60 marathons, only two stand out. The first one of 26
miles and the other of 35 miles. On both occasions on completing them I
experienced euphoria - a wonderful sense of well being. But despite this my
most magical lifetime moment was in 1950 (at the age of 19) or so when I was
taught to question everything - science, religion, philosophy, prevailing
health beliefs and practices, custom and tradition. I came to the conclusion
then and have not changed my opinion since that when it comes to the
realities of our existence and our most direct needs, all these aspects are
rife with myth, superstition, misconception, obsolescence and are to a great
extent irrelevant. Of course, one must select the good they offer which in
any event were never extraneous to what life always offered. Apart from
this, these beliefs generally to my way of thinking did not work.
Subconsciouly I was seeking for something that did work and kept working for
anyone who took the trouble to invoke some simple principles.

   To discover truth for myself and put control back where it belongs, to
the intelligence within, I found that to achieve a higher potential, I had
to stop eating starchy foods, refined foods, dairy product and foods of
animal origin. In my search this is what Yoga and Nature Cure taught.
Following this line of thought I found that did not have to worry about
balanced diets, germs, viruses, vaccines, medicines, supplements or special
exercise programs. I do however, do some yoga stretches, some of their
breathing and internal cleansing methods, and the only time that I ever used
my head in a constructive way is by standing on it. The purpose of eating in
this fashion was to keep the entire interior of the body in clean state so
that all the organs can work with clockwork efficiency. There being nothing
to obstruct the circulation, digestion, elimination, flow of nerve impulses
and the brain remaining fresh and always receptive to innovative ideas and
new challenges.