Lost Tribe Found

[Brian_Henderson@xxxxxxxx (Brian Henderson)]

Greetings, Fellow Dinosaurs...

 Although I've been a member of this list for a few months now, I've hesitated
to contribute until now (intimidated, I think, by all you "real" writers...bein'
as I'm just a lowly technical editor...ok, ok, I'm a text reformatter). Inspired
to put finger to key (actually I use both fingers) by the irresistible call for
"True Adventures In Xywriting", I'd like to tell y'all about the Xyusers here at
Mitchell Repair Information Company (formerly Mitchell International Inc.).
 There are 23 full-time Xywrite III+ users here. We use the application to
reformat auto repair information articles (written using a truly ancient system;
Crossfield's version of Standard Electronic Typesetting Format, running on a
Hastech mainframe - which is then translated into raw ASCII for the Xywriters.
We're hoping to enter the 20th century sometime around 2007). The reformatting
we do is in aid of creating text that's suitable for the electronic version of
our printed books.
 Although the incredible text manipulation abilities of Xywrite make the manual
details of our job much easier, it's the macros, man! The macros! (picture me
jumping up and down here). We've saved untold hours using programs that whip the
text into shape first, then check for errors after and hundreds of tasks in
between. I've lost count of the number of macros I've written (some are huge -
one is over 30K. I'm curious whether programs that big are common or not).
 While I don't have a personal Xyvictory to relate (unless you count finding
that I really enjoy, and have a talent for, programming... well, simple
programming anyway), I thought you'd like to hear from another enclave of
Xynosaurs (ok, ok...that's the last time I'll do that).

Yours,

Brian Henderson
Mitchell Repair Information Co.
San Diego, CA

brian_henderson@xxxxxxxx

 "The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's better than what we
  have right now."
                      William O. Douglas