Interactive Extended Elevations

[Olly Betts]

In message <000e01bfdc3a$1b76d610$9b0d640b@synopsys.co.uk>, "Footleg" writes:
>Looks like it would make sense to allow a flag in the file containing the
>list of legs to say whether they are to be excluded or included. The
>graphical editor can be made to deal with this without the user having to
>know anything about it.

I'd argue against this unless someone can give a good reason why it's
actually useful.  The only reason Andy gave was that it might be clearer to
someone manually editing the file.  But:

(a) I don't see how a file with 5000 legs in is clearer than one with 100.

(b) We don't particularly want someone to fiddle with the file by hand most
    of the time.  The information means little up close - it needs to be
    viewed en masse to make much sense.  A graphical tool helps it all make
    sense.  Also striving for the file to be easily hand editable will
    detract from what the graphical tool needs from it.

To illuminate my second point, compare using a drawing package vs writing a
Logo program to do the same thing, and also note that drawing packages don't
use Logo as their file format.  Not an exact analogy, but hopefully you see
my point.

Cheers,
Olly