Re: A radical idea: a new XyWrite

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Kari Diabolus,

Greetings. Here is the other, other side.

> 1. It is way too late to do
> anything of the sort. The customer base which still exists is too small
> (and dying one by one).


I will pay thousands of dollars to get this. I suspect others would pay a
considerable, if lesser amount. What matters it if our numbers are few
and dwindling? We aren't trying to please any set of people but
ourselves.


> 2. We already have
> a product that is ported to the modern Windows platform, albeit a
> singular one (Nota Bene).


I have tried NB with each iteration, without success. I don't know that
I've tried NB 3, which you have mentioned, but certainly most of them for
a long, long time. NB is indeed sufficiently XyWrite-like, but it is
terribly slow and non-robust. Versions later than NB 9 will not load U2.
A few years back, I wrote a post to this list on how NB would save us,
but despite much tinkering with each version and some real improvement by
means of that tinkering, I have always found NB unsatisfactory for
scripting work, which is most of what I use XyWrite for.


(You may not know that I developed a front-end language that I call
XyBasic to make scripting more intuitive. So far, it has an installed
user-base of one; but it's been only 28 years since I offered it to the
world.)



> 3. Harry and Carl
> and many others would like to see a XyWrite 4 derivative, whereas a
> XyWrite 3-type program would require less work and be more likely
> negotiable with any parties holding the rights. This would make the
> project less desirable to key proponents but more feasible on the
> whole.


That's possible, except that one of the very best features is available
only in Xy4: wildcard search and replace. I use it all the time. (Carl
has made regex available to us via U2, and that conceivably could
substitute.)


I don't think the rights are at stake any longer. How long has it been
since TTG even was contactable? 12 years? 15 years?


> 4. vDosPlus XyWrite
> is quite good as is.


It is indeed. But it still has the 64k memory limit, and it runs 15 times
slower than XyWrite. What difference to that make, you ask? I have large
programs that I not only need to run but, more importantly, need to
compile from XyBasic. In Xy4, the compilation (which is partly done by an
external program but partly by XyWrite itself) can take over a minute.
Since I am a clumsy programmer, I need to recompile maybe 50 times a day,
when I'm developing code, so that's a deal-breaker.


(The workaround for the latter problem is for me to write a Python
program to do compiles, but this would take me maybe 400 hours. Happy
hours, true. But still . . .)



> 5. Editing huge
> XyWrite files with aplomb can be accomplished using EditPad with syntax
> highlighting of Xy codes.


My own problem is not filesize, and Carl's Big Edit frames for U2 take
care of that anyway. I have EditPad but my main alternative is Notepad++,
which also has syntax highlighting for whatever. It's good, but not as
good as a command-line, easily customizable program--and one with which I
have 31 years of familiarity.



> And lastly, as de
> Gaulle put it: vaste programme, monsieur!


Well, you know de Gaulle is no longer trending.


Regards,

Harry




> Best
> regards,
>
> Kari Eveli
> LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland)
> lexitec@xxxxxxxx
>
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