Re: New Complete Pascal example (event driven programming)

["Jeff Blakeney" <jeff.blakeney@a2central.com.remove-fes-this>]

  To: Michael Kent
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:14:32 +0000, Michael Kent wrote:

> In comp.sys.apple2 limtc <thyechean@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I have added the SimplePaint source code and the application as a SHK
>> file in the web page.
> 
>> Does this work for you?
> 
> Yes, SHK files are best.

Making files available as ShrinkIt archives for those using real Apple
IIs *AND* as disk images for those using emulators is the best, in my
opinion.  Some people don't have the real hardware and some don't use
emulation so having both satisfies both types of user.

Being one who has both real hardware and emulators, if I want to quickly
check something out from my PC, I can download the disk image and try it
but if I want it on my real Apple II, I can download the ShrinkIt
archive to my PC and transfer it over or I can download the archive
directly with my Apple II.

> No need to binscii them or use a binary II
> wrapper these days.

Here I disagree.  Binary II wrappers are just as necessary now as they
used to be.  One of the things that Binary II does is preserve the
original archive name.  Back in the MS-DOS and early Windows days, those
operating systems could only have up to an 8 character file name with a
3 character extension so using Binary II, you could give your archive a
shorter name but you can get the original name of up to 15 characters
long back on your Apple II.  Today the opposite is true.  File names can
be extremely long and descriptive today but on the Apple II we are still
limited to 15 character names unless we use an HFS volume where we can
get up to 30 if I recall correctly.

Another thing Binary II does is preserve the date of the original
archive which can be handy if you are trying to figure out which version
of an archive is older.  Without the preservation of dates the date of
the archive file is when you write it to disk on your Apple II.

>> Or do you prefer me to zip it up first? Or SHK then ZIP?
> 
> Both of those would be redundant.

I agree.  Compressing and already compressed file doesn't save you much.
Even though a zipped SHK file will be smaller than the original SHK file
because of better compression algorithms, it just adds an extra step to
being able to use the SHK file that isn't needed.
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