Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: REXX command standards
Message-ID: <2240@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 17 Nov 90 19:12:30 GMT
Lines: 47
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <1990Nov17.151516.14252@sisd.kodak.com>, jeh@sisd.kodak.com (Ed Hanway) writes:
>yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes:
>>Well Just my .02$, CED2.0 has a very nice rexx port.
>>basicially every menu item can be asecced from REXX.
>>by saying the name of the menu item, or the menu command,
>>ie 
>>menu(1,2,3)
>>will select the 3 subitem of the 2 item on the first menu.
>
>Ugh. That's a quick&dirty way to include REXX support, and it may have
>advantages if all you want to do is automate sequences of things done from
>the menus, but obviously any standard should use real command names like
>cut, paste, move, etc.

The above mentioned methodology is only one way to invoke a function within
CEDPro from ARexx. There are a lot of the more common commands implemented as
text strings. The menu number method simply allows you to use ANY function
available from the menu, and keeps down the overhead for parsing for things
that are not used often (how many times have you wished for a ROT-13 function
available from an ARexx->editor interface?)

>(This is not a criticism of CED; given ASDG's reputation for setting and
>following standards, I'm sure that when a standard does emerge, CED will
>follow it.)

CEDPro's ARexx interface isboth intuitive and complete.  I hope that if a
standard emerges for ARexx editor commands, that CEDPro's suite comprises the
basis for it.

>As Mike Meyer pointed out, simply taking every command that a program has
>and creating an AREXX equivalent for it isn't a good way to develop a
>standard.  Simple things like port name and command syntax conventions
>should be relatively easy to agree on.  The hard part will be agreeing
>on what commands should (and should not) be included in a standard.

Port name? Never! Were we to have a standard port name for an editor, it would
mean that I could only have one editor active at a time.

-larry

--
The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches and IBM PCs.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
| \X/    lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips |
|        COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322  -or-  76703.4322@compuserve.com        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+