Re: How is U2 different from XyWrite?

[Patrick Cox pdcox@xxxxxxxx]

This is a great question. I feel out of my
league here often but I've used XyWrite
3.55 for years and am wondering if I
ought to change to U2 as well. Clearly,
the support nowadays is for the latter.

Patrick


-----Original Message-----
>From: "John H. Kessel" 
>Sent: Aug 15, 2006 4:20 PM
>To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
>Subject: How is U2 different from XyWrite?
>
>When I posted my first questions on August 4, I said I was a low-end user.
>Let me
>amplify that. I have read that John Tukey distinguished data analysts from
>statisticians. In the same spirit, I am a program user, not a programmer.
>Right now,
>for example, I learn a little bit more about U2 each time I reread the
>documentation
>and especially when I use a command for the first time, but in the end it
>doesn't add
>up to very much. All I need to know are how to issue the commands, and have
>some
>general sense of what a program does.
>
>I spelled this out because I want to ask a question so general that a
>complete response
>would require hundreds, if not thousands, of pages. Both native XyWrite and
>the
>entries in U2 are written in XPL. So how are they different? More
>specifically, we are
>dealing with at least five entities: original XyWrite 4.016, U2, Virtual
>Dos Machine, an
>Operating System, and other applications that run under that OS . PARSEFRM.DOC
>explains that U2 makes XyWrite much more efficient by loading all needed
>commands
>at one time, thus preserving memory. But there has to be interaction
>between XyW and
>VDM, the OS, and any other applications involved. Does U2 "translate" the
>XyW output
>so it can be understood by the "external programs?" "Translate" commands
>from the
>"external" programs so XyW can respond to them? Or is its fundamental task
>something
>different?
>
>All I am looking for is a reply of paragraph length. I understand that this
>would involve
>gross simplification of intellectual work that has gone on for more than a
>decade. But
>it would help me begin to understand what's going on.
>
>Thank you.
>
>John
>
>
>John H. Kessel
>Ohio State University
>kessel.1@xxxxxxxx
>