Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!sun!imagen!atari!kbad
From: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: WRITE (retraction of FLAME)
Message-ID: <1419@atari.UUCP>
Date: 31 Mar 89 17:09:16 GMT
References: <4085@druhi.ATT.COM> <446@electro.UUCP>
Reply-To: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 43

In article <446@electro.UUCP> ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko) writes:
|unfortunately, it doesn't look like there are gonna be any more versions
|from microsoft. so the initial version is the final version. 
 
  That's interesting, Ignac.  Where do you get your information?
Last I heard, we are trying to entice Microsoft into updating Write.
 
|i don't understand why atari just didn't hire any programmers to fix the
|damn bugs in write. 
 
  Because the damn program belongs to Microsoft, and we don't have the damn
source code.  It's damn difficult to hire damn programmers to fix the damn
bugs when you have no damn source. 
 
|as it stands, ms write is usable for small jobs. for any large word processing
|jobs, you just can't trust it.
 
  MS Write is used for Atari internal engineering documentation, and is
being used to maintain and upgrade the developer documentation.  It is
a very powerful word processor.
 
  As I mentioned in my mail to Mr. Terrell, I hated* write for many,
many months before I began to get comfortable with it.  Write on the ST
has a severe learning curve; mainly because there are so many features!
A lot of times, I would have trouble doing things with it, or its
features would elude me, and I'd get frustrated by something I thought
I couldn't do.  Fortunately there are several Write gurus at Atari
that have shown me how to work around the problems I've had.
 
  Now, when I try to use other WP programs, I miss the features and the
flexibility, and I keep coming back to Write...
 
  I admit, I must sound like I'm gushing, or "holding the company line,"
but I'm only defending Write because I think it deserves it.  It's
highly underrated, because of the difficulty of installing GDOS (the GDOS
installation manual leaves a *lot* to be desired) and because of the
learning curve.  Sure, it isn't bug free, but it's certainly at least as
robust as any other WP available for the ST, and it's more powerful
than most.
-- 
 Ken Badertscher                 | #include <disclaimer>
 Atari R&D                       | No pith, just a path:
 Software Engine                 |   {portal,ames,imagen}!atari!kbad