Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Time is of the essence on IPC.
Message-ID: <1826@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 14 Apr 88 00:05:09 GMT
References: <1571@louie.udel.EDU> <353@brambo.UUCP> <1661@louie.udel.EDU> <49063@sun.uucp>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 41

In article <49063@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes:
> In article <1814@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >How many programs out there *don't* know how to use the filesystem?

> Well, take any program that speaks IFF to files. To correctly write
> IFF files you have to be able to seek back to the front of the file
> to store lengths and such. Not to useful with a pipe. 

Well, you don't *have* to, but it'd be nice. That's a good point.

> >One problem with AREXX that nobody's really addressed yet is that it's not
> >going to be usable by novices... people for whom the CLI is terra incognito.

Here I don't mean that you need to use the CLI, but that you need to be
technically literate enough to deal with the CLI and write macros and
stuff. It's not just a matter of clicking a bunch of icons.

> >One outcome of this process should be something that can be used to sell
> >Amigas to normal people.

That is, people who go bananas over Hypercard.

> Here your ignorance is showing. I can understand your dislike of ARexx 
> because it is not free, and I have no problem with that, but before you
> go off an make blanket statements like the one above I suggest you
> evaluate the product. I upgraded to TxED plus which comes with a 'demo'
> version of the Rexx server. TxED uses ARexx to implement macros and such.

A "demo" version of the Rexx server? That sounds like just what the doctor
ordered. What's the extent of this demo version, and is it distributable?

> What is nice is that using these macros are just as easy as using macros
> in MaxiPlan or something, no excursion to the CLI is necessary, no novice
> hostile features at all.

For a lot of people macro language *are* hostile. That's the only point I was
making here.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.