Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!elroy!mahendo!jplgodo!wlbr!scgvaxd!ashtate!dbase!drc
From: drc@dbase.UUCP (Dennis Cohen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: FullWrite
Message-ID: <297@dbase.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 88 15:47:21 GMT
References: <421@stech.UUCP> <1002@aicchi.UUCP>
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale Cal.
Lines: 72

In article <1002@aicchi.UUCP>, egv@aicchi.UUCP (Vann) writes:
> Before I begin let me note that as in my last response concerning 
> FullWrite, I am a fan of the product. It is well designed for the most
> part, and at present exhibits performance problems. But before you judge
> the product up or down try the following:
> 
>         - Import a MS Word 1.0x file of about 40 pages or more
>           preferably complete with a dozen or so MacDraw PICTS.
You don't even have to go this far in trying to import various MacWrite files
into word to make it bomb, odds are that it will crash or hang during the
conversion.  I haven't experienced the problems you cite and have converted
some rather large files into FWP originating in both MacWrite and Word 1.05.
The major difference was that they were full of partial screen dumps, etc
that came out of FullPaint or MacPaint.

>           
>         - Try and scroll through the document you have imported.
>           Chances are the program bombed with an out of memory
>           error even before you could scroll.
>           
>         - What is going on here. If MS WORD can handle this document
>           with minimal effort then FW should be at least as good if
>           not better. But it is not as good as MS Word. This will be
>           obvious even to the casual observer.
That there is a problem when such a condition arises will be obvious to even
the casual observer; however, the comparitive evaluation is erroneous.  If you
are going to compare, then compare native format against native format or
foreign format against foreign format (i.e. apples to apples :=}).  In such a
comparison, I believe you will find a draw (though my experience has FWP a
winner in even this comparison).

>           
>         - Most of the folks testing the program are doing so with rather
>           little attention being paid to the kinds of large files this
>           processor was designed to handle. Don't make that mistake in
>           your tests.
And if you're going to use FWP in its minimum configuration, you should do the
same with Word.  1MB for FWP, 512Ke for Word.  FWP uses extra memory quite
efficiently, the same cannot be said for Word after you go past 1MB.

>           
>         - Another question comes to mind, concerning STYLE SHEETS. Why
>           can't the global indentation of paragraphs be overridden in
>           a style sheet? For that matter why can't the indent values of
>           first line be set from a style sheet in the first place. This
>           seems a gross oversight to me.
No comment, doesn't seem that important to me, but it could be to others.
"...gross oversight..." is probably a gross overstatement :=}.

>           
>         - I have further questions which I will put to the net readers as
>           I do enough research on the issue to describe each properly.
>           But for now I caution restraint on the program. It LOOKS great
>           and I'm betting that it will be, but I want the developers feet
>           held to the fire, to insure that they deliver on what promises
>           to be a blockbuster of a program.
> 
Having been through major development efforts myself, I feel a little empathy
for the poor developers who have probably been working ridiculous hours under a
great deal of pressure from their marketing folks.  My guess is that the
technical staff probably gave an aggressive estimate as to how long it would
take, the marketing folks figured that they were padding and announced that it
would be ready even before that, and a vicious cycle of slips began as they
pressured the programmers and requested even more features (the gamma has some
things in it that I didn't see in last January's hype).

Dennis Cohen
Ashton-Tate Glendale Development Center
dBASE Mac Development Team
--------------------------
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are _MINE_!  I have no idea what my
employer's opinions are on the subjects discussed.