Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!yale!cmcl2!esquire!sbb
From: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Fullwrite Pro -- Six Months Later
Message-ID: <768@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 3 Nov 88 21:11:54 GMT
References: <75917@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 37

In article <75917@sun.uucp> chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>My primary problem with FWP is speed. I've gotten to the point where I
>actively hate the "Updating Document" box that shows up every time you try
>to scroll around the document. Make a one word change in a 20 page document
>and then scroll to the end. Sit and wait, even though no line breaks
>changed. Do some writing, then jump to a bookmark to check on something
>somewhere else. Sit and wait....
>
>The curse of WYSIWYG.

No, the curse of bad programming.  It is incredible to me that anyone
could write a word processor (with some admittedly nice features) that
requires over a megabyte of memory.  And then still make it slow.

The rest of your article was great, and I think it pointed out the
numerous problems with FullWrite, but I just couldn't let this one
point slip by.  It's like the difference between PageMaker and
Ready,Set,Go! when inserting text (a difference I'm sure you're aware
of, Chuq, since you've been one of RSG's biggest supporters): one is a
dog, the other isn't.  In fact, it's one of the reasons people *use*
RSG rather than PageMaker.

Speed is *very* important, but it does not prohibit the use of a full
WYSIWYG display.  Look at WriteNow for a good example of a fast program
that supports true WYSIWYG all the time.  It doesn't need a "quick and
dirty, enter the text but don't format it" mode, because it was
programmed correctly.  It also doesn't need a 1100K partition under
MultiFinder, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, thanks for the article, and here's hoping that Ashton-Tate
cleans up their act soon.

-- 
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   cmcl2!esquire!sbb            | 
   esquire!sbb@cmcl2.nyu.edu    |                           - David Letterman