Re:RE: XPL Documentation for XY4

["Daniel L. De Hainaut" Young_DeHainaut@xxxxxxxx]

Jim,

The Signature programming manual sounds tempting, but I'll leave it to
others on this list to puzzle out the copyright implications before I
commit. I'd hate to get on TTG's bad side just when they're promising a
Y2K fix (be still, my heart).

I (and many others both quicker and more knowledgeable than I) would
probably be happy to answer specific questions and even critique/debug
short bits of XPL code. But that's not going to teach you programming if
you've got the manuals and are feeling clueless.

I recommend two invaluable resources that will:

First, Herbert Tyson's _XyWrite Revealed_ (my copy is (c) 1990 Windcrest
Books/Tab Books/McGraw-Hill). The XPL chapter, though written for Xy 3.58
or thereabouts, is still largely relevant to my XyDos 4.017. I can't speak
for XyWin, though I think I recall hearing in this forum that there's a lot
of overlap. Unfortunately, this book is certainly out of print, and I'm
not offering to photocopy without a note from Mr. Tyson (and/or his lawyer,
or at least my lawyer).

Second, and guaranteed to be adequately up-to-date and readily available to
you, is your XyWrite dialog file. It contains hundreds of sample programs
of all levels of complexity and interdependence. If you can use your
manuals to learn enough about dialog files to find some individual programs
that don't link to too many other programs and then analyze them, you'll
learn a lot.

Good luck.

Dan De Hainaut
103105.1262@xxxxxxxx