Re: Enhance2

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from  05/31/96

> There is lots of stuff in the ENHANCE.DLG file that is new and is mine.
> The documentation should make this clear, and I think it does. Look at the
> detailed account in ENHANCE.DOX. It tells what each enhancement is, and
> where it can be found (DLG, SET, MNU). There is no "redundant overhead."

My "criticism" (if that's the way you took it -- I thought I was asking how
to locate your new routines) was, if anything, that "we ought to be able to
clearly identify & evaluate your work." I think that's legitimate; I
prefer to check programs out before plugging them in. When was the
last time you ran a frame without examining first the code? (Never?)
Specifically, you don't label or mark frames that you've changed/added; you
do nothing -- add your name, initials, just a symbol! -- to distinguish
your work from XyQuest's. Your ZIP section, which I take to be exemplary &
indicative, contains no telltale 'fingerprint' of your authorship, AFAIK.

Moreover, to aver that your subtitle _Enhancements to the Menu/Dialog
System in ENHANCE.MNU and ENHANCE.DLG_ represents a "detailed account" of
"where [each enhancement] can be found" in a 750K file with 1300+ routines,
is just silly. In fact, it's nearly impossible to "identify & evaluate"
your work, as distinct from XyQuest's (which many of us have already
evaluated, and need not again).

How many of ENHANCE.DLG's routines differ from XyQuest's? Yesterday, when
I carefully compared the first 40-50Kbytes (about 30 pages) of your
ENHANCE.DLG with XY4.DLG dated 12/12/94, past your introductory disclaimers
I found precisely _two_ places where your DLG departed from XyQuest's: an
altered Save/Get number in {{5,E2N_UNITS}}, and the removal of "BX (p 2)"
in {{5,AddExt}}, plus some stylistic nuances like substituting  for
@SIZ(), or ".TMP" for "VN/1180", or >0> for
<9>. By then, the exercise was numbing; I thought ENHANCE.DLG
was merely a different-date version of XyQuest's own base XY4.DLG. OK, an
error; but it's not every day that one sees such extensive 'borrowing' of
somebody else's proprietary material, verbatim, while yet maintaining that
"there is lots of stuff ... that is new and is mine".

Or are you the actual author of XY4.DLG, and therefore 'entitled'? Did
I detect a sensitivity there, calling it "plebeian" or "plodding" or
"prosaic" -- or whatever? Pedestrian! That was the word... Well, XY4.DLG
_is_ pedestrian. Narcoleptic too. No spice, no fun, not even a routine
to dial the phone, or a calculator, or calendar, or alarms, or a
spreadsheet... Show me *ONE* innovative program in factory-issue
XY4.DLG! Something fresh or strange... Nada. No wonder half the III+
audience hates IV, despite huge advances.

How can you claim that ENHANCE.DLG isn't laden with redundant overhead? We
already possess 95%+ of this material -- intact, unaltered, in XY4.DLG!

MErging your unique material within XY4.DLG at TOF would make it operative,
effectively distinguish it, permit ready evaluation, and deliver you
from infringing appearances -- no mingling. It would also cut the size
of ENHANCE.DLG from 750K to -- what? 50K? It's a reasonable suggestion.


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