RE: Rescue Xy3

["Harrison, Shawn" Shawn_Harrison@xxxxxxxx]

One of our illustrious Xy3 users said:
.....
If you're convinced that a superior release is
one that converts user programming from a cheerful
free-for-all into an activity whereby a tiny elite
serves passive consumers,
.....

Huh? It sounds as though you're arguing that Xy3 is superior because of
the community that formed around it. I think you're the first one to
bring non-technical merits into this discussion. I think we should stick
to the technical merits of various releases and leave it at that.

Technically, there are some things that don't seem to work as well in Xy4
as in Xy3. For instance, when I batch print using "tyf
@," in Xy3, it's really speedy -- I can print 300
pages in 30 files in about ten or fifteen seconds. The same operation in
Xy4 takes a minute or two. Mind you, these are rough estimates. But I
think I'm in the range, and the difference is an order of magnitude.

Another example: To get ASCII characters in Xy3, I can use Alt-F9, go
through the help menu that appear below the status line, and insert the
ASCII characters wherever I like -- command line included. By contrast,
in Xy4 I go through the "Insert > Other > Special Character" menu, and it
won't let me put the character on the command line. In fact, I haven't
found a way to put special ASCII characters on the command line in Xy4,
so I either must write a little program or else go to Xy3.

That aside, for day-to-day editing I find that Xy4 has superior
functionality. For instance, it includes the new DM ... DZ function,
which lets me create and extend DF blocks using shifted cursor movements,
in a way analogous to a Windows or Mac editor. When I switched to Xy4, I
found that my speed in many editing jobs improved markedly.

Also, Xy4 lets me use wildcards on *both* sides of a ci function. Instead
of having to write a program to "bc se
|[something]|xc>[do something simple]", I can often
simply type "ci |[something with wildcards]|[something else, preserving
the wildcards|". It's similar to using Regular Expressions, and it makes
my editing day a whole lot more fun.

I also like the hidden command line for Xy4 programming (bx...q2 instead
of bc...xc) -- it cuts down on the visual noise.

In fact, there are some things XyWrite can't handle that Word 6.0 can
(gasp!). For instance, let's suppose I want to sort a file, and the
records each consist of several paragraphs with the line breaks replaced
with a place-holder (I use "{*}" for this), so that each record is one
long paragraph. I think Xy4 has a limit of 6000 characters for each
record. As far as I can tell, Word has no limit, so the other day I had
to use Word to do this job. (Why would I do such a thing? Often I have
separate files, with a set number of records, that have to be merged into
order. So I make each record into one paragraph, number each of these
with a program, then merge and sort the two files. Voila! a single file
consisting of pairs of ordered records. Sometimes these records are quite
long.)

At the end of the day, I'm glad I can use Xy4 most of the time, and I'm
glad I have Xy3 available for batch printing and higher ASCII, and I'm
glad I have Word for editing functions it can handle that XyWrite can't,
or ones that it just handles better (charts, for instance).

So, friends, there are lots of word processors, and they all have
strengths and weaknesses. XyWrite in *all* its versions has more
strengths and less weaknesses than others. And there is certainly room
for healthy dialogue about comparative *technical* merits. But let's stay
out of the "my word processor creates a better atmosphere than yours"
type of arguments, or other personal attacks, as I don't see how these
can be anything but destructive and un-useful.

Shawn

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shawn_harrison@xxxxxxxx
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