Re: Nota Bene

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from xywrite@xxxxxxxx Tue, 28 Oct 1997 00:45:05 -0500 (EST)
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 28 Oct 1997, Harry Binswanger wrote:
> 
> > Re Nota Bene:
> > >
> > >> * Do XPL programs work under NB, given its Xy engine?
> > >
> > >Yes, just the same as Xy--though some Xy4 calls may not work, and some
> > >NB4.5 calls may be new to you. I've got customized versions from some of
> > >the Xy list members that work fine with NB, so it's not an
> > >insurmountable problem.
> >
> > Does it support wildcard search-and-replace?
> >
> 
> Again, same as Xy--same underlying editor, with some divergence after
> 3.57. So it does Xy S&R, but not grep-like S&R.

I think this understates the real divergences. When I tried to write an
interoperable Xy3+<==>NB4.5 XPL PM about a year ago, I was truly astonished at how
little NB's version of XPL had evolved since NB v3.0 (which I own). I want to
be clear that I was not running NB v4.5 myself; I was simply composing test PMs,
handing them to NB testers, and asking whether they worked. What "worked" were
techniques belonging to the early days of Xy3+, e.g. around v3.52. I _suspect_
that, if you are writing sophisticated XPL scripts under XyIII+ -- and forget about
Xy4 -- they're not going to run. If somebody would like to loan me an NB 4.5
engine, I could be more specific. My testers did not appear to understand much XPL
themselves, so there is always the possibility that my test PMs were not
implemented or executed properly.

In practice, no XPL that I use today would run under NB v4.5. Square
zero.


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