Re: Is XW a dog? -Reply

[Steve Crutchfield scrutch@xxxxxxxx]

>>>  04/16/96 10:44am >>>

Something happened to XyWrite between releases 3.xx and 4.xx.
Whatever it was, it was a turn downhill in terms of real functionality. I
believe it had to do with IBM's acquisition of the product from XyQuest. My
guess would be that before that time, there was a single programmer
somewhere that really cared about that product. After that time, he/she
was replaced by a *team* and a committee.

====================================================

XyWrite IV was acquired late in the development process by IBM, and
turned into Signature. Versions 1.0 and 1.01 were dreadfully pokey and
clumsy. Version 1.02 addressed some of these issues, and I remember
running some comparison tests on my own: Version 1.02 was about 20
percent faster, on average, than 1.01.

When Signature became XyWrite 4 after the TTG takeover, as I recall
much of the klutzy code was re-written. I remember Kenny Frank
commenting in his letter marketing the product that they had rewritten a lot
of the basic Signature code to improve speed. On my admittedly high-end
machines (50 MHz 486 at home, 100 MHz Pentium at work) the speed
difference between XyWrite 4 and XyWrite 3.57 is negligible.

Steve