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From: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Folded release
Message-ID: <1989Jul9.164159.3144@stag.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jul 89 16:41:59 GMT
References: <1989Jul5.150226.24149@stag.UUCP> <218@nikhefh.hep.nl>
Reply-To: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Organization: Mindtools ST Access Group, Plymouth, MN
Lines: 58

In article <218@nikhefh.hep.nl> t68@nikhefh.hep.nl (Jos Vermaseren) writes:
>There seems to me something wrong with the idea of storing
>fold information in a separate file. Files that are subject to
>transport between various machines need to have their `fold file'
>transported along.

Actually, that isn't always true. One reason I keep fold and
relational info in a seperate file is because I don't want thi
info transported when I send a file to someone. Folding and relations
tend to be a fairly personal thing. I may fold closed all my
procedures that I know work and don't need enhancement, while someone
else may just wish to fold closed comment blocks.

The real reason, though, that FOLDED uses a seperate file is that this
method allows you to work with files that you don't want to (or can't)
write out to. For example, I tend to fold and/or relate files a lot without
making any actual code changes. If I saved the fold or relational information
out to the actual file each time, then 'make' would have a field day
everytime I rebuilt the executable. Also, it would be impossible to
fold or perform relations to files that were owned by someone else
(folding actually becomes very useful when you are working with other
peoples code).

Having seperate files isn't as messy as I had first feared. I used
FOLDED in an environment where for 3 months I was editing files at
home on my Unix system, uucp'ing them to work during the day and using
FOLDED on them on both Sun's and Apollo's, and then uucp'ing them
home. As long as you don't do any major line deleting with a foreign
editor, you are pretty well set. Also, keep in mind that a majority of
programmers out there tend to stay on one machine for most of their
programming...and many don't even have PC's at home.

>There is a much better scheme for folds available already in an
>editor that is commercially available (for 2 years). It exists
>currently on the ST and in the fall it will be released for PC's.
>The fold information is stored in the file itself in such a way
>that the user can make it into commentary for whatever language
>that he happens to work in.

One other drawback to this method is the the confusing printouts
you get (I used this method 3 years ago to implement a simple minded
folding capability...and also implemented folding in vi and the Apollo
DM editor using the same concept). A more critical drawback, to me,
is that pure text files can't be folded when you store the information
back into the text file. This was important to me, since I tend to
use FOLDED as a thought processor and task planner as well as a source
code editor.

A thought for future folding techniques might be to allow the
integration of folding information into a file to be a user option or
possibly based on file extension. The ideal answer might be to someday
come up with a better concept of 'files', but the odds on ever
changing to an alternate file-system methodology is pretty slim,
given the mass of unix, pc-dos, etc pushing the single-file,
single-dataset mindset.

  -Todd Burkey
   pwcs!stag!trb