Re: XyWhere?

[rtenn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (R Tennenbaum)]

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996 05:36:53 -0300 you wrote:

>First of all, I haven't vanished. I have posted several messages regarding our new
>product in the last month or two, in particular advising whoever asked that we have
>commenced a limited beta and that it would begin to expand in the next 30-45 days.

Beg your pardon. I suppose my server failed to pick up your posts. I
hadn't seen your name here since the spring -- the last one I have in
my archive is a message dated 5/11 in which you say that you hope that
TTG will fix a search-and-replace buglet in a future release.

>
>This product is anything but vaporware. Steven Shawe visited our offices several
>weeks ago and posted a message to the list in which he described what he saw.

I do recall Stephen Shaw's (I think that's how he spells it) message,
however. It struck me generally as an interesting account of an alpha
demonstration.

You will pardon my skepticism. While not everyone on this list agrees
with everything I say I believe that there are very few who feel that
TTG in the last several years has done as much as it could or ought to
develop Xy, or to help established users: I don't hear people singing
the praises of the XyWin, for example, as they have for Xywrite II or
III.

Kudos to development -- even if it develops away from what I need.
But to speak frankly, I sometimes wonder why certain companies prefer
to spend time and energy defensively disputing with users rather than
listening to what they really want and trying to give it to them. The
impression that your springtime messages about the "new Xywrite" left
-- which if I'm not mistaken, is getting a new name as well -- was
that you felt you had new worlds to conquer, and that you were a
little tired of old Xywriters.

If I'm wrong, forgive me. Granted, my prejudice has been obvious:
towards sharpening the old text-mode Xywrite, perhaps tuning it up for
OS/2 (at least to the point of recognizing long filenames) -- but
keeping it clean and quick. I guess I have been guilty of taking TTG
to task for, for example, failing to see the potential in SGML, but as
I say, perhaps you can understand my frustration.

>Finally, this product is by no means targeted exclusively or even primariy at the
>"legal niche". Its functionality has broad applicability, and has nothing to do
>specifically with "database management of document lists and case management tools"
>although it could certainly be used for that. I gave a pretty thorough description
>of much of its functionality last spring.
>

Hey, I'm the biggest Agenda fan around. If I could figure out a way
to integrate it with the tree structure of my directories and
documents and allow me to edit with the power of Xywrite -- without
infringing on Mitch Kapor's patents -- I probably would. At the same
time, since every indication is that hard disk management structures
in the PC architecture are perhaps a year short of stabilizing, I'm
not sure I'd throw all my energies this way -- just yet at least. And
I suspect I would be very careful about just what I used to program it
with.

Welcome back!

 Rafe T.
 readme@http://www.quicklink.com