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1.1     ! root        1: From research!vax135!jsd Fri Feb 27 21:15:49 1987
        !             2: Message-Id: <[email protected]>
        !             3: Received: by nexus.UUCP (3.2/4.7)
        !             4:        id AA00714; Fri, 27 Feb 87 21:15:43 PST
        !             5: Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 21:15:43 PST
        !             6: From: vax135!jsd (John Denker)
        !             7: To: research!bwk
        !             8: 
        !             9: Dear Brian:
        !            10: 
        !            11: A status report.
        !            12: 
        !            13: I got your package and unbundled it.
        !            14: Set up some directories.
        !            15: The make went just fine.
        !            16: The demo/example "isort.gen" failed, since the awk
        !            17: we have around here has never heard of functions.
        !            18: Can you send a less complicated example? Or a more complicated awk?
        !            19: 
        !            20: I made up the following example script, and tried it and subsets thereof.
        !            21: It seemed to develop OK, but anim just sat there, apparently doing nothing.
        !            22: 
        !            23: ////////////////////////////////////////
        !            24:   clear
        !            25: t: text 3 4 Hi there
        !            26: a: line 1 2 3 4
        !            27: b: box 10 11 12 13
        !            28: c: circle 5 6 2
        !            29: ////////////////////////////////////////
        !            30:  
        !            31: Perhaps you could provide a similarly trivial (correct)
        !            32: example, and perhaps its developed version, to facilitate
        !            33: testing, and to facilitate creating others by analogy.
        !            34: 
        !            35: 
        !            36: Other constructive suggestions, to help the next customer:
        !            37: 
        !            38: 1) Assume that the distribution is unbundled into a directory called XXX.
        !            39: The makefile should move from XXX to LIB all the files that belong there,
        !            40: and set the permissions (chmod a+rx ...).  Perhaps this could be done
        !            41: as a "make install" or something.
        !            42: 
        !            43: 2) Also, the makefile should compile newer.c.
        !            44: 
        !            45: From research!vax135!bsw Tue Mar  3 01:46:42 1987
        !            46: Message-Id: <[email protected]>
        !            47: Received: by nexus.UUCP (3.2/4.7)
        !            48:        id AA04984; Tue, 3 Mar 87 01:00:55 PST
        !            49: Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 01:00:55 PST
        !            50: From: vax135!bsw (Ben S. Wittner)
        !            51: To: research!bwk
        !            52: 
        !            53: Jon & Brian --
        !            54: 
        !            55: Here are a list of (bugs / suggestions / queries) concerning
        !            56: your animation stuff:
        !            57: 
        !            58: 1) (bug)  Anim seems pretty confused about what to do if you proceed
        !            59: after the end of the script.  It leaves up the last
        !            60: frame, and can't clear it.  I conjecture that it has
        !            61: forgotten about what's up, so it thinks the screen is blank,
        !            62: and doesn't bother even to try clearing it.
        !            63: 
        !            64: 2) (query / request) You indicated that the hooks exist
        !            65: for implementing gray scales and colors.... How hard is that?
        !            66: Is anybody at your end working on it?  If not, do we stand
        !            67: a chance of doing it here?  It sure would be sweet.
        !            68: 
        !            69: 3)  My naive mind would have expected a "circle 1 1 1"
        !            70: to be nicely inscribed in a "box 0 0 2 2", but that is not
        !            71: the case.  We noticed that boxes change their shape so as
        !            72: to be a fixed fraction of the display window, but circles
        !            73: are special.  I am NOT convinced that this is a feature.
        !            74: If this is really what you intended, it will require
        !            75: some very delicate documentation.  I suggest that the other
        !            76: possibilities be provided also:  circles that scale and/or
        !            77: boxes that don't.
        !            78: 
        !            79: 4) (Suggestion)  Could you extend the language so that
        !            80: the script can initialize some of the menu items?  I find
        !            81: it awkward that I must EACH TIME use the mouse to set up
        !            82: "click x, click y, slow 32, step 1, again".
        !            83: 
        !            84: 5) (Related suggestion)  It seems particularly awkward
        !            85: that getting to "slow 32" requires 5 mouse operations.
        !            86: Entering numbers is a perennial unsolved problem in 
        !            87: mouseology, and I don't have a really good solution,
        !            88: but perhaps you clever people can come up with something....
        !            89: Possible (weak) constructive suggestion:  a submenu
        !            90: with a bunch of numbers on it, sorta like a scroll bar.
        !            91: 
        !            92: 6) (Related suggestion)  Several of the main menu items
        !            93: are diametrically NOT self-documenting.  For instance,
        !            94: 1-step is displayed only if you are NOT in 1-step mode;
        !            95: xor    ..      ..      ..      ..  NOT ..   xor  ..;
        !            96: backward       ..      ..      ..  NOT .. backward ....
        !            97: 
        !            98: Possible constructive suggestion:  on categories where
        !            99: there are only two or three options, you could show ALL
        !           100: of them, with N-1 of them SHADED OUT.
        !           101: 
        !           102: 7) (Possible bug)
        !           103: (( I have certain personal standards about turning in
        !           104: "high-quality" bug reports, and this DOESN'T meet them.
        !           105: I haven't done enough checking for dumb mistakes.
        !           106: Feel free to ignore this, unless you can easily see
        !           107: what the problem is....))
        !           108: 
        !           109: I had fdevelop blow up on me, on line 10164 of
        !           110: a huge script.  I looked at and near the "offending"
        !           111: line, and didn't see anything unusual.  I also extracted
        !           112: the relevant lines with 
        !           113:        head -10300 blot.s > xxyy
        !           114:        tail -300 xxyy > yy.s
        !           115: and there were no problems with yy.s!  Are there
        !           116: any internal limits in fdevelop that were exceeded?
        !           117: 
        !           118: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: x value not a number
        !           119:  source line number 10164
        !           120: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: x value not a number
        !           121:  source line number 10364
        !           122: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: y value not a number
        !           123:  source line number 10364
        !           124: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: unrecognized command
        !           125:  source line number 10564
        !           126: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: garbage at end of line
        !           127:  source line number 10564
        !           128: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: garbage at end of line
        !           129:  source line number 10763
        !           130: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           131:  source line number 10962
        !           132: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           133:  source line number 10962
        !           134: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           135:  source line number 10962
        !           136: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           137:  source line number 10962
        !           138: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: garbage at end of line
        !           139:  source line number 10962
        !           140: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           141:  source line number 11161
        !           142: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           143:  source line number 11161
        !           144: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           145:  source line number 11161
        !           146: /usr/anim/lib/fdevelop: string too long -- truncated
        !           147:  source line number 11161
        !           148: 
        !           149: (( and on and on and on.....))
        !           150: 
        !           151: **********************************************************************
        !           152: **********************************************************************
        !           153: **********************************************************************
        !           154: 
        !           155: I also observed that anim hung up on big .i files.
        !           156: Hmmm.....
        !           157: 
        !           158: 
        !           159: Anyway, thanks again for sending us the stuff.
        !           160: It has already taught us a lot about our simulations.
        !           161: 
        !           162: -- jsd
        !           163: 
        !           164: From research!vax135!jsd Tue Mar  3 19:48:42 1987
        !           165: Message-Id: <[email protected]>
        !           166: Received: by cassandra.UUCP (4.12/4.7)
        !           167:        id AA04793; Tue, 3 Mar 87 19:45:15 est
        !           168: Date: Tue, 3 Mar 87 19:45:15 est
        !           169: From: vax135!jsd (John Denker)
        !           170: To: research!bwk
        !           171: 
        !           172: Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by proceeding from the end 
        !           173: of the script:
        !           174: For example, run your sorting demo (isort).
        !           175: When it gets to the end, CLICK THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON.
        !           176: Anim will leave up the last display (and forget about it)
        !           177: and restart the script, resulting in a fairly weird display.
        !           178: It ends, of course, with the second result XORing the first
        !           179: result into oblivion -- i.e. a blank screen.  This is 100%
        !           180: reproducible on our Suns -- we thought it was a strange feature
        !           181: at first.  If it doesn't reproduce on your systems, then it
        !           182: is even stranger than I thought!
        !           183: 
        !           184: -- jsd
        !           185: 

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