Re: "Webulating" RPG

Chris Rehm wrote:

Chris,

I'm not picking on you, it's just that your postings are about all that showed 
up at
this hour and I'm too wound up to sleep...too much of Dean's coffee..;-)

> ** Reply to note from therrin@isaac.net (Terry Herrin) Tue, 24 Feb 1998 
>23:51:19 GMT
>
> Terry, of course SEU works. It is a fair text editor.
>
> But, what if you could display 40 lines on the screen at a time? What if
> comment lines were shaded a different color than active lines (in an
> environment like ours, that is particularly useful)?

I'm old...I need glasses..I couldn't read 40 lines on my 15" monitor.  The 
other day I
witnessed a little old lady driving a land yacht at 5 mph around a turn and she 
had
binoculars taped to the dash!!  Except for the grace of God, there go I.

> What if you could improve the functionality of the editor by extending it
> with your own functions?

Please elaborate.  What's beyond copy,move,delete,insert,scn/rpl?  I'm not 
really trying
to be a hard case..I'm genuinely curious.

> What about an undo key?

F5 has worked for me so far in most cases....cursing a whole lot covers the 
rest :)

> What if you could open another session, side by
> side with your original, editing the source for a file or screen by just
> positioning on the F spec containing the name and hitting a key?

That would be nice...I would like to edit the member I'm browsing in case I see
something that needs a clean up.

> Each of these features is a "nice to have". Not really needed. But when you
> have a complete editor where all of these features is present, it isn't
> that hard to save a little time here and a little time there. It adds up.

But the boss sez: I pay you the same salary anyway.  Where does "he/she who 
signs the
checks" save any money.  Now we have to prove to them that bringing an 
application on
line before lunch instead of after paid for it.  Like I don't have enough to do 
:)

> Do you like the ILE debugger? Code/400s debugger is much nicer, and it has
> been available for years. How much time debugging could you have saved over
> the last few years if you had a better debugger?

With OS/2 on my desktop (and a trial of CODE/400) I had to have a special key 
to popup a
Win display (Got it from a game that had a "boss" key that flipped up a fake 
spread
sheet in case you got caught) to avoid being burned at the stake as a heretic.
Remember, in it's time the Edsel was a better car!  People who are not "team 
players"
have a history of being culled from the herd.

Guess I'm too much from the old school where computer time cost so much you 
wouldn't use
it to find undefined fields or mistypes.  SEU does do some rudimentary syntax 
checking
and I suppose a PC based editor would find a mistyped EXSR factor 2 cheaper 
than a run
through the 400.  But then again that may be true for the upper end of the 400 
line.
BTW what does 1 minute cost on a 5xx series vs 1 minute on a 200?  From what 
I've
gathered on this list, because of load, compiles on a 5xx take longer than the 
average
200.  So much sneaky priority changing going on..:)  Now for those that want to 
measure
CPU time also factor in human clock wait time before you answer.

> I think the only way you can know what the difference would be is if you
> give it a shot.

I agree.  It took me a while to get use to front wheel drive and now I'm 
wouldn't go
back to rear wheel drive.  Well that's not totally true. I just picked up a 
1984 300ZX
with only 63K original miles for $850, no dents, single owner, t-top, leather 
interior,
leaks like a sieve! But I only use it when the traveling is easy.

The trials for CODE/400 and Flex Edit didn't give me enough time to get 
"hooked".  Which
means when a user (client) asks: "Can you give me blah, blah, blah."  I respond 
with:
"You betcha! This is what I live for! And it will only take x hours.  Wait a 
minute, I
made a mistake, since you don't have tool XYZ it's going to take a bit longer.  
Gee,
taking into account your last umpteen requests it might be cost beneficial  for 
you to
license tool XYZ. It will save you money in the long run." And they say: "I'll 
see if I
can get it past the budget committee." Which is a polite way of saying: "Just 
get the
job done and don't flip me any s***." :)

> I am reminded that when I used to mention the advantages I found in OS/2,
> my friends using DOS or Windows 3.1 would often say, "But I don't NEED
> multi tasking. I only run one program at a time." Of course, because you
> have become adapted to the box you're in.
>

Chris, some people can only DO one thing at a time....they don't multitask so 
why should
their computer ;-)

Regards,
James W. Kilgore
qappdsn@ibm.net



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