Re: xyW3 xpl memory etc

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from xywrite@xxxxxxxx Mon, 19 Oct 1998 20:29:08 -0400 (EDT)

Congratulations. You've skinned what was, in my view, already a pretty
thin cat. I expect no less; you're the presiding Xy3 programmer these
days, no? But I stick by my guns: Xy3 XPL _is_ "miserably prolix" and, to
do odd things, incontestably bizarre. Programming conveniences are
relatively meager. You omit to mention the byte count of my Xy4 routine to
replace 13/10 with 10: 15 bytes! Versus your 37 (and the same "tortured"
nonsense that mine had too, which are in the nature of Xy3). What is
obvious and accessible to a novice in Xy4 requires deep experience and a
ton of experimentation in Xy3. Shall we revisit your !CL2@ routine to get
three items -- what were they? insert mode, cursor location (CMline|text),
CMline content, or maybe something else, I forget, perhaps cursor position
on the CMline -- you know, the routine that bombed on open file windows
with no content -- and then count up the bytes? You lose, bigtime. More
to the point, one loses in Xy3 in terms of effort and hours to
write routines, the arduous grind to get from point A to point B.
Everything I do in my Xy4 routine is simple and straightforward --
"baroque" my foot; of necessity, your !CL2@ or whatever you call it is
full of tricks and contortions (and not transparently easy to understand
either, with it's complex entwining of subroutines scattered in many
files). My god, look at _XyWise!: you accuse _me_ of "baroque"
programming?? Yeah, right.

So how does Xy4 do the same thing as your !CL2@?
 >;*; Header|Text
 >;*; Insert|Overstrike
 >;*; Cursor position in header
Now that's simple! Anybody can do that. Those are accessible tools.
Anyway, your views notwithstanding, OOM (Out-Of-Memory) is an ever-present
consideration in Xy3, whereas I've never even *seen* the error in Xy4.

> Reduce your ..HL3 and, except while printing, .PR3 to 1k
> each of file memory and see if your attempts at something
> substantial in v3 aren't more fruitful.

Uh huh. Thanks. (What are HL3 and PR3, anyway?)



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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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