Re: STACKXYW

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

Nathan: I've taken the liberty of answering your question publicly.

> (Private)
> Dear Robert:

> ... [Can] you explain why those who don't want STACKXYW in a
> help frame can't just take off the smiley faces fore and aft and use
> it as a program--and what if any changes would be needed in order to
> do so?

Well, of course, it could be done. Anything can be done, more or less. But
it's much more complicated than it might seem. For example, the very
functions that make Stack work, $S and $E, _only_ work from a Xy4|XyWin
Dialog file, e.g. XY4.DLG. Stack, as constituted, is designed rather
intimately to work in Help, i.e. in .DLG. And this is the "best" way of
using Stack, regardless of what users may initially think (they would, in
time, come to the same conclusion), regardless of setup, regardless --
period!

My experience is that users need to be taken step-by-step through
installation, without any significant alternatives or options. If there
isn't a clear (and simple, which is tough to do) procedure, or if they take
it upon themselves to modify that procedure, and then a program doesn't
work, I get a mess in my lap. Moreover, if a user changes any procedures
in the actual code of STACK.PM, I virtually guarantee that eventually it
will break -- or that I could throw a command line at it which it couldn't
stack and regurgitate faithfully. And if Stack doesn't work, there are
about three users out there with the skills to fix it unaided. It comes
out of my hide in a carousel of E-mail. So, no, I'm not inclined to
describe alternative installation procedures. I really don't think there
are any alternatives, in the context of this package.

Moreover, nobody will ever want to "use [Stack] as a program" in the
conventional sense. You're never going to put "RUN STACK.PM" on the
command line. Stack is intended to be triggered, in the .KBD file (and
perhaps occasionally in user programs), by a single function call ($S). The
only realistic alternative to operating out of Help is to load Stack on an
alphanumeric Save/Get A-Z, 0-9 (i.e. to LDPM Stack), and then subsequently
call it -- again, in .KBD -- with &S. This is how all previous versions of
Stack worked. And the previous versions of Stack (separately issued for
Xy4|XyWin) do work; that's the short and best answer to your question: the
only realistic alternative. But when Stack is LDPMed, it sits in memory
like a big 6 or 7K byte lump of lard. The new version lightens up your
system; it is loaded into active memory only when running, and yet is still
lightning fast to access (because the XyWrite Help system is incredibly
fast; why Help has such a bad rep, I really don't understand -- the best
way to overcome it is to leap in and start using it).

Another advantage of this version is that file glut is reduced to one entry
in .DLG, plus an (optional) auxiliary STACKAUX.PM which you can put in your
U2 file (another Help file) if you wish. In sum, the improvements are
incremental but numerous, and if you consider the overall evolution of
this program from the 1980s until now, it has become very powerful, and it
is worthwhile to stay on the "upgrade path", i.e. to get and use the latest
version. (Having used it for the last 18 months, I can vouch that it really
works, and is bug free.)



-----------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------