RE: merits of Code400 was RE: Coloring the RPG code

Hi Rick!

>>Regular Expressions allow you to search for things like
-snip-
>I can think of a few reasons for doing this, but
>the lack of wild card and other expressions doesn't
>make it unusable.
>
>I find that the x line command is pretty
>reasonable and functional to weed
>out the exceptions when searching - for instance...

I won't turn this into a "anything you can do..." contest, but my point was
that regular expressions don't work at the line level like the SEU line
commands, they work at the character level.  So "X" or "HIDE" can certainly
help narrow the focus to a few lines, but finding (and ultimately changing
them) is still a manual process, as opposed to using a regular expression to
change the ones I want.  All of them.  No typos.

-snip-

>>Macro Language.  You can write editor "scripts"
>>that allow you to perform repetitive tasks like
>>"create a procedure" or "insert subfile page load" -
>>stuff that you do every day, time after time.

>Very handy.  But my templates are written in such
>a way that enables me to make them work for a new
>file fairly quickly.

That's probably what every SEU programmer does.  My templates used to have
goofy named that were unique and non-compliable.  I had a series of CHANGE
commands I'd run to make them fit after I'd copied them in.  "c )key CUSKEY
a x" "c )col1 CUSNO a x", etc.  When I forgot one, the compiler would choke
on variable names like ")col3"  Once again, a macro allows automation to
take care of this repetitive stuff instead of using up my time.  In theory,
I can use that time to be thinking about the solution, not the mechanics of
how to meld my template into the current code.  Of course, that's presuming
I can think in the first place!

>> although grep is pretty nice.
>
>define grep.

grep is a Unix-like tool that lets one scan multiple files for strings, much
like PDM option 25.  But grep lets me use regular expressions instead of a
"line contains" scan.

-snip-

>what's LIBMAN?

Oops.  LIBrary MANager.  System/3, circa 1978.  Full screen editor that ran
under CCP.  SEU is very similar to LIBMAN, and therefore very comfortable to
me.

>Maybe I'm afraid of learning the new way,
>thinking that I'll lose the old
>way and never being completely happy with
>either way.  you know what I mean?

I know what you mean.  But you're a consultant/contractor - you're already
ahead of me in doing new stuff!  Choice of editor is very personal, and
changing from SEU to Brief, then Flex, then Code hasn't been without it's
problems.  But I found that each one is distinct enough that I don't often
get confused.  Sort of like going from a 3741 to a 3277 to a 5251 all in the
same room.  Yeah, all the keyboards are different and my fingers slip
sometimes, but they're different enough that it works more often than not.

Regards and thanks for the thoughtful discussion!
  --buck