Re: Development

[OkAnnie@xxxxxxxx]

Ken Frank asked: "How would [a VBA work-alike embedded in
xyWrite] strike you?"

Strikes me-the-marketing-kibitzer as overdue and smart. To a new
user, xpl couldn't look more intimidating--as arcane as things
get in a consumer app, and now extensively undocumented.
Everybody loves VBA, and it's said to have internals that allow
surprisingly fast execution. BASIC certainly is preferable to a
script language familiar only to os/2 users. My brother keeps his
state's NPR network on the air with a program he wrote in
compiled BASIC because he figures in an emergency in his absence
anybody could walk in off the street and understand the code.

I-the-xpl-old-hand would prefer a simple xpl while statement. When I learned
C, I never looked back and am reluctant to relearn BASIC (C
hardnoses believe that using BASIC encourages bad programming
habits; they'd pale at xpl). And
I can't suggest substituting VBA's C counterpart: It doesn't
exist. If xyWrite had been promoted at the right time as the
smashing programming editor it is ... sigh. I code C with xyWrite
and compile from the xyWrite
CMline; the best integration of output I can hope for will
continue to be via a do command on a dedicated key.

It's all about this excellence thing. Incorporating a C subset
into an app isn't unprecedented. Display PostScript is PS with a
C front end, and the
Sprint word processor's macro language was C. We've seen how much
good that did Steve Jobs and Philippe Kahn. If a few of us don't
like the dummying down, we'll have to take what we can get or get
left with the visionaries on the tracks under the gravy train.  --
Annie

========================== annie fisher  nyc