Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!lpami
From: lphillips@lpami.van-bc.UUCP (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: More DMouse 1.03 bugs
Message-ID: <1781@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 88 13:49:28 GMT
Sender: lpami@van-bc.UUCP
Lines: 62


In <5768@cup.portal.com>, doug-merritt@cup.portal.com writes:
 >Don't pound square pegs into round holes! No matter how wonderful
 >AREXX is, the simple fact of the matter is that very few people have it,
 >and at $50 a shot, it's going to stay that way. If you insist that
 >everything use AREXX, then we'll have to wait until everyone does
 >have it to implement anything new.
 >
 >More logical would be to create a CX script language now. Later, when
 >1.4 includes AREXX as part of the standard distribution, *then* we
 >can use it with CX (if you still think it's appropriate, which I have
 >strong doubts about). Until then we need interim solutions.

  The only problem with what you say is that I, and probably most people,
have seen very little of CX. All I ever saw was a 'proposal' sort of thing
that described the Commodities Exchange, without going into a lot of
detail, and without any binaries/source/whatever. Yes, ARexx is a $50
package, and yes, not everyone has it, but to many people, right now, it is
a lot more available than CX, and is getting ever increasing support from
developers. Looking at it another way, would you consider $50 to be an
outrageous price for a fine quality tool?

 >Hmmm...I didn't use any arguments about technical merit. Ok, consider
 >this...what I was talking about for CX doesn't need *any* of the features
 >of AREXX. It doesn't need pattern matching, it doesn't need real smart
 >IPC control, it doesn't need control structures.

  Right. They sound to me like two completely different things

 >All you need is something real simple, like a file specifying what
 >program to start up when some hotkey is pressed, and translations
 >specifying that hotkey A should be translated to hotkey B, etc. You
 >could write AREXX programs to do this, sure, but it'd be a lot
 >harder than it would be with a simple script language. And it would be
 >overkill to boot. CX already supports all of the *functionality* you
 >need; it's just that currently you need to tell it what you want via
 >a C program. I'm proposing a more human friendly interface, that even
 >non-programmers could use, that's all.

  Perhaps I am remembering the one article I read on CX badly, but I didn't
think it was any more than an arbiter of hotkey combinations? Is there
more? If so, please tell me more about it.

 >It's not like you to have knee jerk reactions, Peter. Usually you think
 >things out very clearly. Oh well...I've posted much dumber things myself,
 >so I shouldn't criticize...With all the AREXX debate going on, it must be
 >easy to get jumpy.

  Are you sure it was a knee jerk reaction? Sounds to me like Peter got
caught up in the simplicity and power of ARexx, and passed on some of that
enthusiasm.

-larry

--
If all the MSDos machines were laid end to end,
  they still wouldn't be as fun as a single Amiga.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                          |
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