Re: Making the Transition

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from cld@xxxxxxxx on Thu, 14 Jun 2007
22:30:49 +0000

> The booklet's full name is "Signature: Making the Transition".
> It was, and is, a very useful summary of the differences between
> Xy3 and Signature|Xy4 -- although, if memory serves, it wasn't
> distributed with Xy4, only with Signature.

Carl, can you tell us the number of pages in this "real" _Making
the Transition_ book[let]? It's more than 100, I'm positive
(I'm not at home to check). That thing is packed with info,
which was (at the time) the first and (still sometimes) fullest
exposition of 'new' Xy4 features. For me, two commands, APFIL
and RPLFIL, really stick out as intriguing, in part because they
aren't documented elsewhere, but primarily because they both
allow you to edit a file without opening it in a window -- to
edit in background. I've scarcely ever used these commands in
programming, but the concepts, and the latent possibilities,
knock me out still. A closely-related notion, the little-known
 VAriable, which can read lines in a file
in background, is the enabler of the U2 REGistry file,
XyWWWeb.REG

If I remember correctly, what happened was that when Signature
was released (after many delays and postponements), this
book[let] wasn't quite ready yet, so it wasn't bundled with the
main package -- but they went ahead and printed it a few months
later. The SysOp at XyQuest Info Line announced to online users
the availability of this supplement to the big package, inviting
us to request it -- I think it was free. He described it as a
"technical, programmer" thing, i.e. seemingly a niche item, and
I daresay there wasn't overwhelming interest. If you didn't ask
for it, you didn't get it. Carl and I, inter alia, asked for it.

Still later, Signature produced a real programming guide, much
better organized but impact diluted by coverage of stuff carried
over from Xy3+. Making the Transition seemed disorganized, but
that was because it was just the new stuff, so the subjects
jumped around. Every page was interesting. I've always wanted
a PDF of it.

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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