Re: New XyWrite release

[nsivin@xxxxxxxx (Nathan Sivin)]

Kenny:

In thinking about the disk storage demands and loading time of a
new version, I can't see how these can be separated from its
functionality, which you have not summarized (we realize that so
far the list would be very tentative). Keep in mind that the
heavy word processors designed to be customized by a MIS Dept.
and used by secretaries expect 30MB of disk space and take at
least twice as long as XW to load. It is all a matter of
tradeoffs.

Mainly because neither the screen fonts for draft mode nor the
WYSIWYG fonts are comfortable to work with for any length of
time, I do almost all of my drafting in XYDOS, and I suspect most
people not enslaved to
Windows do too. It loads so quickly (esp. with help file
disabled) that when I want to start something in a hurry I don't
use XW anyhow.

This raises the larger question of whether it is possible, as the
size of Windows programs increases, to load what is needed to get
a user started immediately and then the rest in the background.
If you can do this at all, it ought to be possible to let the
user specify what gets loaded immediately.

Of course one can do this already by using a very short
XWSTART.INT file, and then, after loading, running a second INT
file that can be assigned to a key, and processed once one has
begun work. One might answer that the total loading time is the
same, but of course we are talking about what users perceive.

I have not heard a word about beta testing, although I volunteered.
Does this mean it has not begun?

-- Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325
(nsivin@xxxxxxxx)