Smartset.Zip

[Robert Holmgren]

Carl:

 I wanted you to know that I think SmartSet is really a *terrific* package --
congratulations! I just finished perusing your tantalizing notes, and test
driving some, though not yet all, of your routines (after picking up
SMARTSET.ZIP in the File Section here a few days ago). You've got unique
ideas, like RUNCODE DUMPDEL and EG (which last is eminently practical, & may
yet convert me to Styles). You've got System Info like SCANCODE ERRCODE and
STRIPDIR -- these go directly into my toolbox. You've got genuine timesavers
like FINDDIFF and GOFILE, which breathe completeness and polish (but without
being ornamental) into the bare bones commands that are native to Xy. Desk
adjuncts like TIME and FMARK. Lots more. Useful, economically coded (this I
infer from the speed at which they execute) ... and ... they work! Maybe
they'll start a trend, who knows? They prove XyWrite's power to be wholly
unorthodox, like flag verbal redundancies (your elegant REPEAT routine). It
seems to me that once people experience this order of individually-tailored
power, where the program bends so profoundly to the operator's will, they're
not likely to be satisfied with an out-of-the-box word processor! They'll
learn the dozen or so commands of XPL, and start to tinker; it's almost
irresistible. Why isn't there much more of this going on? (The utter failure
of XyQuest to encourage or promote user programming, to react to it, to do/say
ANYTHING about it, is a large part of the answer!)

 Anyway... Thanks for making SmartSet public -- and at the right price, too.
I imagine that you donated a few pro bono hours to SmartSet, no? (Nice name!)