ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (11/24/85)
Reza Zarafshar replied to my article on WordPerfect: >> The niftiest feature of WordPerfect is an invisible one >> which they don't really advertise; the fact that the program is >> coded in PC assembler. This makes the program hellishly fast >> compared to ANY other word processor I've ever dealt with on any >> kind of hardware. WordPerfect can flash from one end of a 50 >> > I don't feel that something written in Assembly language these days >can be considered a "nifty" feature. While I agree that there are a few >programmers left that can write faster code than a few non-optimizing >compilers, it is still a better idea to produce something that is >maintainable and not a "hack" than something that is just plain fast. >There are far better reasons for writing in high level languages than >just speed these days. Speed is wonderful but if the stuff makes you >re-boot every once in a while, I think one ends up wasting more time >than that gained by Assembly language speed. >> WordPerfect has more features than any other PC word >> processor. It has text, decimal, centered, and right-flush tabs, > It is a noble idea to produce "Swiss Army knife", but believe me >the more features your throw in the thing the more chances of blowing >yourself out of the water very often, especially when the stuff is written >in Assembly. > Several things I should point out. First, I don't normally recommend programming in assembler to anyone other than masochists; I use the Mark- Williams C compiler for all of my own programming work on PCs and suggest most others writing for PCs do likewise. The only legitimate NORMAL uses for assembler which I could think of would be writing compilers and op-system functions. However, once you have a certain machine architecture in the hands of 15 million users (the PC), it BECOMES legitimate to write in assembler when attempting to produce an ULTIMATE product of a certain genre FOR that machine, which is what SSI is doing. As far as having to re-boot or anything of the sort goes, your intuitive assessment of the situation is wrong. At IMS we have one guy whose job includes finding and categorizing ways to blow up all of the common PC software programs, and WordPerfect is the ONLY PC class word processor he has never been able to blow. Blowing up Multimate (mostly written in C) or Samna (entirely in C), by contrast, is relatively easy. My own experience with WordPerfect is mostly related to the one feature of WordPerfect 4.1 which doesn't really work, the Navy DIF section of the little SSI Convert Routine; essentially, SSI just took a literal copy of NAVDAT 17.11 and wrote up a set of "DIF filters" as if the whole thing was just a look-up table, not realizing how much more than that is involved in the Navy's DIF effort. Essentially, I deciphered the file-structure of WordPerfect and wrote a set of real DIF conversion routines which the Navy has found acceptable and which allows IMS to use PCs in federal bids involving word processing which call for DIF (which will soon be all of them). All of which gave me an insight as to the final really big edge which SSI has over all of the competition; their file structure itself is about 100 times more concise and intelligently formulated than any other I've ever looked at. It is totally modularized, with no pointers or any other unnecessary structures, and with the effect of any control code felt at the point at which it occurs. A WordPerfect code for a margin or tab stop change, for example, contains both the old and new values, so that the program can make the proper adjustment when passing over it going in either direction. A tab setting for one of WordPerfect's 160 column ruler lines consists of a hex c9 followed by 20 characters for the old ruler, then twenty characters for the new ruler, and then another hex c9. Each of the twenty characters represents a bit pattern (8 x 20 = 160) with bit n set if a tab stop is set at that column, thus a 160 column ruler line is totally described in 42 bytes, with no need for pointers and constant recalculation of page size etc. to allow the program to move in either direction. Pretty neat, isn't it?
pavlov@hscfvax.UUCP (840033@G.Pavlov) (12/03/85)
... maybe you don't have to reboot the system very often, running SSI WP -
but it does let things get out of control every once in a while (try
saving a file to a damaged floppy, for example. You'll recognize the
"Abort, Retry, or Ignore" message - but will a secretary ? Answer "A"
and you're back at DOS level - with your work gone - ).
The tab stops are a pain, by the way - auto indents work off them - and
they're absolute. So if you decide, after you've typed in your document,
to change margins, you have to reset all the tabs as well - else your
indents are likely to be halfway across the page.
Or: center a text string, with text already on the line - and then try to de-
cipher the nonsense that results on the screen. Yes, you can go into the
"reveal" screen to see what is "really" there. But that is a difficult
thing to understand, if you don't have a good familiarity with PC's.
It is a good package; I and a group of people that I work with use it exten-
sively. But some of the recent comments about it show a lack of perspective.
It's a good - but still imperfect - piece of software - that may not be ideal
for many people.