Allegro CL 6.0 Trial Edition
Janos Blazi
first look and noticed that now the user of this edition needs a new licence
file every month.
Extrapolating this, we shall probably need a new licence file every week
when Allegro CL 7.0 becomes available.
I understand that they want to be paid for their efforts but then maybe they
should prefer stopping the whole "Trial Edtion Project" at all.
(At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced the
power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB instead of 16MB
as in the previous version and this is very generous indeed.)
Janos Blazi
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Jochen Schmidt
> (At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced the
> power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB instead of 16MB
> as in the previous version and this is very generous indeed.)
Was the ACL5.0.1 Trial Version not limited to 24MB (it is now limited to
16MB - yes 16MB not 18MB like the Win Version)?
I think the need for a 30day license (and a max up to 6 Months!) kills the
use of ACL6 for free deployment of Internetservices promised by
AllegroServe.
Regards,
Jochen Schmidt
j...@dataheaven.de
Kevin Layer
news:39fac...@goliath.newsfeeds.com...
> As the aforementioned new edition has just become available I have taken a
> first look and noticed that now the user of this edition needs a new
licence
> file every month.
There are two reasons for the new license scheme: the new Trial has many
more features than the previous Trial and Lite, and to move the expiration
out of the software. The 5.0.1 Trial and Lite expire on November 1, 2000,
and while the license agreement clearly state it, it's not as obvious as it
is with 6.0. Regarding the feature set, we have included much more in 6.0.
The only limitations are time and heap limits, both of which are a little
more restrictive than they were in 5.0.1. We've tried to create the right
balance of features and limitations.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Kevin Layer
news:8thaau$mlucm$1...@ID-22205.news.dfncis.de...
> Janos Blazi wrote:
> > (At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced the
> > power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB instead of
16MB
> > as in the previous version and this is very generous indeed.)
>
> Was the ACL5.0.1 Trial Version not limited to 24MB (it is now limited to
> 16MB - yes 16MB not 18MB like the Win Version)?
Correct. The Windows 6.0 Trial is limited to 18mb because it includes the
Windows IDE. We tried to make the free heap the same on both.
> I think the need for a 30day license (and a max up to 6 Months!) kills the
> use of ACL6 for free deployment of Internetservices promised by
> AllegroServe.
The license for 6.0 Trial explicitly prevents "free deployment", so I'd have
to agree with your statement.
I don't believe AllegroServe promises you a free Lisp for deployment. Yes,
AllegroServe itself is free.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> Regards,
> Jochen Schmidt
> j...@dataheaven.de
>
>
sun...@cad.strath.ac.uk
Do you have any plan to port ACL into Mac OS X?
Sungwoo
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Kevin Layer
news:8thj2b$msl$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> I saw that there is a trial version for Linuxppc.
And FreeBSD, as well as the usual Linux (x86) and Windows.
> Do you have any plan to port ACL into Mac OS X?
The platform list for 6.0 is already set and does not include Mac OS X,
but it is possible we'd offer it in the future.
> Sungwoo
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
sun...@cad.strath.ac.uk
Sounds great!! I'd like to see ACL on OS X in a near the future. BTW, I just
tried install ACL trial into my linuxppc2000. Well~~ it doesn't works. ;(
With the bunzip2, I unziped the acl60_trial, but it didn't make any acl
directory. It just decompressed acl file which say it is excutable (but does
not). (decompressed file size is 76MB.... compressed one is 14MB) I can't do
anything more to install. It just doesn't work. Do you have any idea about
this...? I got the license code as well, and followed instruction, but
doesn't work.
Janos Blazi
> more features than the previous Trial and Lite, and to move the expiration
> out of the software. The 5.0.1 Trial and Lite expire on November 1, 2000,
> and while the license agreement clearly state it, it's not as obvious as
it
> is with 6.0. Regarding the feature set, we have included much more in
6.0.
> The only limitations are time and heap limits, both of which are a little
> more restrictive than they were in 5.0.1. We've tried to create the right
> balance of features and limitations.
>
> Kevin Layer
> Franz Inc.
I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as 'modern
languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft C++ is vitually
free for students (at least is Germany). But of course it is up to you to
run your business as you prefer to; I was simply stunned when I read that
"new licence file every month" busines which I have never seen before.
J.B.
Erik Naggum
| As the aforementioned new edition has just become available I have
| taken a first look and noticed that now the user of this edition
| needs a new licence file every month.
And just _why_ do you object to this? Does anyone have a duty to
make the life of Janos Blazi easy when he does not want to do the
same for anyone else on the whole entire planet, such as by actually
_purchasing_ a development license?
| Extrapolating this, we shall probably need a new licence file every
| week when Allegro CL 7.0 becomes available.
Sure, Franz Inc are totally unreasonable people with a deep-rooted
desire to annoy you by _giving_ you their development environment
for free under certain conditions. Get _real_, Janos Blazi. Drop
the very sick paranoid delusions that something you do not happen to
like is done on purpose to annoy you. That kind of thing is only
true for taxation.
I simply suggest you put yourself out of your misercy by purchasing
a development license. (It mey lower your taxes if you do it right.)
| I understand that they want to be paid for their efforts but then
| maybe they should prefer stopping the whole "Trial Edtion Project"
| at all.
They are trying to reach intelligent people with a good software
project and would like to limit the negative effects of having to
give it to people who turn out to be massively unintelligent frauds
at the same time. This is how marketing works. You never know who
the next great customer might be, but you cannot open your door only
to people who look like they could The One Great Customer and be
very sorely disappointed if they are not. Now, consider the view
that you are behaving just this irrationally towards Franz Inc as a
customer, this time not of any products you have, but of your money.
Most people fail to realize that a trade is bidirectional, and make
all this stinking shit about how only the guy with the money should
get everything. What I wonder is, how did these guys get the money
to begin with? What _did_ they sell in exchange for their money to
get that kind of idiotic reality-deficient attitude towards products?
| (At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced
| the power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB
| instead of 16MB as in the previous version and this is very generous
| indeed.)
Is it because it is _more_ usable that you are whining about all the
"work" you have to do to get a new license file every month?
Sometimes, I wonder if the right approach to marketing _isn't_ to
insult everybody's intelligence and only sell crap products on TV,
because every time you do _not_ insult everybody's intelligence,
_someone_ feels theirs should have been, and proceed to do it.
#:Erik
--
Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One?
-- George W. Bush
Kevin Layer
Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
you didn't say):
% bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
a single file.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Kevin Layer
wrote:
>> There are two reasons for the new license scheme: the new Trial has many
>> more features than the previous Trial and Lite, and to move the expiration
>> out of the software. The 5.0.1 Trial and Lite expire on November 1, 2000,
>> and while the license agreement clearly state it, it's not as obvious as
>it
>> is with 6.0. Regarding the feature set, we have included much more in
>6.0.
>> The only limitations are time and heap limits, both of which are a little
>> more restrictive than they were in 5.0.1. We've tried to create the right
>> balance of features and limitations.
>>
>> Kevin Layer
>> Franz Inc.
>
>I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as 'modern
>languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft C++ is vitually
>free for students (at least is Germany). But of course it is up to you to
>run your business as you prefer to; I was simply stunned when I read that
>"new licence file every month" busines which I have never seen before.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that we should give our
software away for free. You even cite the example of MSVC++ as being
"virtually free". Can you think of a reason why MS can do this? I
can. They have a monopoly market share in the PC operating system
market and as a result are the largest software company on the planet.
Same goes for Sun. They give away Java to sell hardware (and to piss
of Microsoft).
Also, we will give out special license files, with longer than 30 day
expiration, in certain situations. For example, someone teaching a
class and wanting to insure uninterrupted use of the product for the
duration of the class. They need only contact us and ask. We want it
to be easy for people to learn Lisp. That benefits not only us but
the Lisp community.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
sun...@cad.strath.ac.uk
> Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
> you didn't say):
>
> % bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
>
> Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
> a single file.
>
No.. I tried first this as instruction said.
% bunzip2
But it doesn't do anything. So I typed like this.
%bunzip2 acl60_trial.bz2
Now it made one single big file. Isn't this a correct way?
anon...@nosuchisp.com
>There are two reasons for the new license scheme: the new Trial has many
Besides the Trial and/or Lite version, is there any improvement in licensing
the versions we pay for? In particular, is there any version that would be
feasible to use for development of Windows shareware and freeware, and also
for minor unofficial/unauthorized projects I might do for my work in my spare
time? I have to pay for it out of my own pocket, because my boss has a minor
dislike of Lisp and a major dislike of Franz. If I have to pay a lot of
money out of my own pocket, I want to be able to use it for activities that
have a reasonable chance of adding to my personal income, such as shareware,
etc.
Kevin Layer
>
>
>> Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
>> you didn't say):
>>
>> % bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
>>
>> Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
>> a single file.
>>
> No.. I tried first this as instruction said.
>
> % bunzip2
The instructions say this:
On UNIX, to install the software, cd to a directory that does
not have an "acl60_trial" directory, and issue the following
command:
% bunzip2 < acl60_trial.bz2 | tar xf -
This will create the "acl60_trial" directory in the directory
the above command is run. If you do not have "bunzip2"
installed on your system, then you can download and use our
version.
Pierre R. Mai
> I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as 'modern
> languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft C++ is vitually
> free for students (at least is Germany). But of course it is up to you to
> run your business as you prefer to; I was simply stunned when I read that
> "new licence file every month" busines which I have never seen before.
Time-limited trial licences are usual in the price region that Franz's
ACL operates in. What is unusual is that Franz is still offering them
publicly, whereas most software vendors in this price range will only
give out trial licences upon request and establishment of a sales
contact. Note that there is a large market for software that is not
at all similar to the shrink-wrapped hobbyist market that operates in
the << $1000 price segment. Try to go to www.sap.com and get a trial
licence for some SAP R/3 module... Or try to get trial versions of
some advanced rendering software...
Regs, Pierre.
--
Pierre R. Mai <pm...@acm.org> http://www.pmsf.de/pmai/
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree,
is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals.
We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein
sun...@cad.strath.ac.uk
> Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
> you didn't say):
>
> % bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
>
> Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
> a single file.
>
When I copy my email, I lost some text by accident.
Now I found that. So I tried this, and it works.
% bunzip2 < acl60_trial.bz2 | tar xf -
Sorry about to give you mess.
Kevin Layer
This would need to be answered by our sales department. You can call
and talk with them, or email. 510-548-3600 or sa...@franz.com.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Tim Bradshaw
> You seem to be operating under the assumption that we should give our
> software away for free. You even cite the example of MSVC++ as being
> "virtually free". Can you think of a reason why MS can do this? I
> can. They have a monopoly market share in the PC operating system
> market and as a result are the largest software company on the planet.
> Same goes for Sun. They give away Java to sell hardware (and to piss
> of Microsoft).
I think these are very good points. You really need to distinguish
between companies who (try to) make money selling a product and
companies who may be producing a product to sell something else.
*Many* companies who produce programming language products are using
them to make whatever else they produce more attractive.
Sun are a really good example. They don't just give away Java to sell
hardware, they give away staroffice, and effectively give away Solaris
too. And I suspect their C/C++ offerings are pretty heavily
subsidised. In fact, I suspect that Sun subsidise their workstation
products nowadays as well, since they really exist so people have a
development platform for the enterprise-class hardware where they make
most of their money..
If you look at companies that sell a programming language product to
make money, their products are often not cheap. Some people have
tried to go for the cheap / lots of copies market, like Borland and
people like that, but not too many have succeeded: it's a dangerous
place to be, since if you become too successful microsoft will come
along and produce a `free' equivalent to maintain market share.
--tim
Jochen Schmidt
> "Jochen Schmidt" <j...@dataheaven.de> wrote in message
> > Was the ACL5.0.1 Trial Version not limited to 24MB (it is now limited to
> > 16MB - yes 16MB not 18MB like the Win Version)?
>
> Correct. The Windows 6.0 Trial is limited to 18mb because it includes the
> Windows IDE. We tried to make the free heap the same on both.
Yes I thought so - but why not giving e.g. Linux 24 Mb as in the former
release and Windows 26 MB to cope better with the IDE?
> The license for 6.0 Trial explicitly prevents "free deployment", so I'd
> have to agree with your statement.
> I don't believe AllegroServe promises you a free Lisp for deployment.
> Yes, AllegroServe itself is free.
Yes, but that is surely not what I or most other people really wanted.
It's not bad to pay for good software - I would really like to pay you for
giving me a sophisticated Lisp-Environment like ACL. The Porblem I have is,
that there are too few options of _buying_ ACL. The cheapest version of ACL
costs much more than I could pay for it. As a Student I would/could use
Lisp mainly for little Free-/Sharewaretools or University-projects. So
there is no profit on the horizon that would compensate the much money.
So IMHO there are too few options between _trial_ and _full_ releases.
Think of that:
Trial-version (Limitations as now, with 30 Day License) free
Student-Version:
Example Limitations:
Heap up to 32 MB Ram (So no really _big_applications)
No deployment-tools
No commercial development
No support
No IDE
and possibly some more...
Price somewhere around 300-450$
Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
Just an example you know much better what is good for you.
continue the good work and thanks for answering the questions.
Regards
Jochen Schmidt
Kevin Layer
wrote:
> Price somewhere around 300-450$
>
>Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
Your argument is seductive. I might have even made it myself, if it
weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
So, it appears that while you would be willing to shell out the money,
very few others are.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Robert Monfera
> You seem to be operating under the assumption that we should give our
> software away for free. You even cite the example of MSVC++ as being
> "virtually free".
I don't receive messages from Janos, so let me ask here: is MSVC++
free? Last time I saw it cost hundreds and thousands of dollars for
anything not being a toy version. Not that I would need or want it for
free. Most Java development tools aren't free either.
Robert
Frank Brickle
Kevin Layer <la...@known.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:10:30 +0100, Jochen Schmidt <j...@dataheaven.de>
>wrote:
>
>> Price somewhere around 300-450$
>>
>>Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
>
>Your argument is seductive. I might have even made it myself, if it
>weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
>that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
The full version is just too expensive for personal use.
We pay full freight for two different versions (Alpha and SPARC)
where I work. I spend most of my working time with one or the other.
It pleased me no end to be able essentially to replicate the excellent
environment I have at work with the Linux trial version. It's
important to note that this was for purely private purposes -- I
use it to run the various CCRMA music programs, and nobody would
claim I'm making any money off *that* or the music that comes out
of it :-) This has contributed quite a bit towards making me a strong
advocate of Lisp in general, and ACL in particular, in the work areas
where I have any influence.
However, with the crescendo of limitations on successive trial versions,
and the cost of the full Linux versions, I've begun to doubt the
longevity of my private projects under ACL, and so have (regretfully)
begun moving to CMUCL. I'd buy an ACL license if it didn't cost so
much, but that's hard to justify for an enterprise that by design
has no commercial ambitions.
It also undermines my support for ACL a little bit, too, especially
when the time is not far away when 64-bit applications will be the
rule in my day job, and there's no guarantee that there will be an
ACL to support them.
Kevin Layer
Use the Trial version. When the 6 months are up, then ask for an
extension beyond the 6 months.
>It also undermines my support for ACL a little bit, too, especially
>when the time is not far away when 64-bit applications will be the
>rule in my day job, and there's no guarantee that there will be an
>ACL to support them.
Are you asking for a 64-bit lisp? We have one today, on HP-UX 11.00
and Compaq Tru64 4.0 and 5.0.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Mike McDonald
Kevin Layer <la...@known.net> writes:
> We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
Why were you surprised? I'd have been surprised if you sold more than a half
dozen. $500+ is a lot of money for most students to pay for a discretionary
expense. $500 last a long time at IHOP's all you can eat pancake special!
Mike McDonald
mik...@mikemac.com
Frank Brickle
Kevin Layer <la...@known.net> wrote:
>Use the Trial version. When the 6 months are up, then ask for an
>extension beyond the 6 months.
That doesn't really address the problem, for several reasons.
And the heap limit is king of crippling, too, with the full
Stanford suite and user-written code loaded.
>Are you asking for a 64-bit lisp? We have one today, on HP-UX 11.00
>and Compaq Tru64 4.0 and 5.0.
We asked for this several years ago and were told we could have it
if we were prepared to underwrite the development :-) UltraSPARC is
the looming requirement.
These are full 64-bit implementations? Not like the
32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
Frank
anon...@nosuchisp.com
>This would need to be answered by our sales department. You can call
No thanks. I'm posting anonymously for a reason. My boss has a hot temper,
and would be annoyed to find that I've been continuing to inquire about Lisp
after being told not to. I would want to keep it under wraps till after my
boss gets fired, which I think might happen soon. Right now I would have to
pay for it out of my own pocket, and I just want some basic information to
know whether it's worth considering. Such as whether I can use it for
shareware development in addition to low-profile after-hours development at
work.
Your sales department should consider the possibility of using the internet
for more efficient marketing. Phone calls are one-on-one which means they
only try to sell to one customer at a time. The internet potentially reaches
many times more prospects than they could ever hope to reach by phone.
Since I'm anonymous, you shouldn't consider this message a request for any
kind of help or consideration, but just a suggestion of how Franz could do a
better job of marketing their product. Someone like me, and there are
thousands of us, could introduce Lisp into a company that never used it
before, and in a few years we could become a major customer. Franz could
therefore have thousands more major customers just by trying to sell to
people like me. Letting us use it for our own minor quasi-commercial
purposes while sneaking it into our companies through the back doors.
I get paid plenty and can afford to pay plenty out of my own pocket. But why
should I, when there are so many alternatives available, and when Franz
doesn't even seem to want customers like me? I can easily use both major
brands of Smalltalk, and also the good brand, without any visible dent in my
budget. I can get Functional Objects Dylan for $399, and do everything I
want with it. I can get Xanalys LispWorks for $799, without ever talking to
a sales person. Where is Franz? Why do they not want me as a customer? Why
are they neglecting a part of their market with so much potential? Why do
they not want Lisp to grow and prosper?
Bruce Hoult
wrote:
> tried install ACL trial into my linuxppc2000. Well~~ it doesn't
> works. ;( With the bunzip2, I unziped the acl60_trial, but it
> didn't make any acl directory. It just decompressed acl file
> which say it is excutable (but does not). (decompressed file size
> is 76MB.... compressed one is 14MB) I can't do anything more to
> install. It just doesn't work.
For future reference in similar situations:
Try The "file" Command
[bruce@k7]$ file foo.bz2
foo.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k
[bruce@k7]$ bunzip2 foo.bz2
[bruce@k7]$ file foo
foo: GNU tar archive
[bruce@k7]$
Like the above example, your single file is very likely to be a "tar"
archive. "file" will tell you. It knows the teltale signs of thousands
of file formats, from unix, Windows and the Mac.
-- Bruce
Kevin Layer
wrote:
>>Are you asking for a 64-bit lisp? We have one today, on HP-UX 11.00
>>and Compaq Tru64 4.0 and 5.0.
>
>We asked for this several years ago and were told we could have it
>if we were prepared to underwrite the development :-) UltraSPARC is
>the looming requirement.
>
>These are full 64-bit implementations? Not like the
>32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
Yes. Correct. I don't know (the expert on this is on vacation at the
moment).
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Kevin Layer
>On Sun, 29 Oct 2000 13:57:03 -0800, Kevin Layer <la...@known.net> wrote:
>
>>This would need to be answered by our sales department. You can call
>
>No thanks. I'm posting anonymously for a reason. My boss has a hot temper,
>and would be annoyed to find that I've been continuing to inquire about Lisp
>after being told not to. I would want to keep it under wraps till after my
>boss gets fired, which I think might happen soon. Right now I would have to
>pay for it out of my own pocket, and I just want some basic information to
>know whether it's worth considering. Such as whether I can use it for
>shareware development in addition to low-profile after-hours development at
>work.
>
>Your sales department should consider the possibility of using the internet
>for more efficient marketing. Phone calls are one-on-one which means they
>only try to sell to one customer at a time. The internet potentially reaches
>many times more prospects than they could ever hope to reach by phone.
You carefully edited out my assertion that you could email us. You
can even use an anonymous remailer if you don't want to reveal your
email address.
>Since I'm anonymous, you shouldn't consider this message a request for any
>kind of help or consideration, but just a suggestion of how Franz could do a
>better job of marketing their product. Someone like me, and there are
>thousands of us, could introduce Lisp into a company that never used it
>before, and in a few years we could become a major customer. Franz could
>therefore have thousands more major customers just by trying to sell to
>people like me. Letting us use it for our own minor quasi-commercial
>purposes while sneaking it into our companies through the back doors.
We do evaluations into commercial companies all the time. We work
with companies all the time to figure out how to work together. For
someone so critical of us, you seem to know little. Perhaps that's
why you're being anonymous.
>I get paid plenty and can afford to pay plenty out of my own pocket. But why
>should I, when there are so many alternatives available, and when Franz
>doesn't even seem to want customers like me? I can easily use both major
>brands of Smalltalk, and also the good brand, without any visible dent in my
>budget. I can get Functional Objects Dylan for $399, and do everything I
>want with it. I can get Xanalys LispWorks for $799, without ever talking to
>a sales person. Where is Franz? Why do they not want me as a customer? Why
>are they neglecting a part of their market with so much potential? Why do
>they not want Lisp to grow and prosper?
As I said, we used to have a product below the price point of $799.
While **you** say would buy it, few did.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Friedrich Dominicus
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:10:30 +0100, Jochen Schmidt <j...@dataheaven.de>
> wrote:
>
> > Price somewhere around 300-450$
> >
> >Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
>
> Your argument is seductive. I might have even made it myself, if it
> weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies.
May I ask if it was just a offer for students? If yes I understand why
you did not sell much. I contacted Franz a year or so ago to buy a
version. But I was just lead to the professional and enterprise
edition. Now to that time Lispworks was simular expensive but with the
Xanalys this changed.
Regards
Friedrich
--
for e-mail reply remove all after .com
Erik Naggum
| I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as
| 'modern languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft
| C++ is vitually free for students (at least is Germany).
I hope it occurs to you some day that Allegro CL is not a
mass-market product and that you grasp the ramifications of that
distinction from Python, Perl, Java and C++.
| But of course it is up to you to run your business as you prefer to;
| I was simply stunned when I read that "new licence file every month"
| busines which I have never seen before.
And you still think you're smack dab in the middle of the people who
are the likely target audience of their efforts? As far as I can
see from your past and present contributions here, you never intend
to purchase a license from them, anyway. Is it really honest of you
to complain that what you get for free is not free enough?
How many customers in your price range do you think Franz Inc would
need to be able to do your bidding? I think 100,000 would be a fair
suggestion. Do you think there _are_ that many Common Lisp users
just waiting for a mass-market price? I know there aren't.
If Franz Inc's expensive (for them) and therefore generous Trial
Edition project means they get 100 new staying customers, while
making it possible for perhaps many more people to try it out, they
have made a huge win, both for themselves _and_ for Common Lisp.
That Janos Blazi, who would never become a customer, anyway, whines
and whimpers is a loss, both for Franz Inc _and_ for Common Lisp.
It's no secret that I think you're the stupidest person who has ever
remained a recurring phenomenon on comp.lang.lisp, but I still want
you to consider what you are doing to hurt the language you want to
use by your useless whining and whimpering against the free offering
of a product you never intend to purchase, anyway.
It is psychologically difficult to accept that you keep posting. I
suggest you stop until you have become more used to exert the effort
required to determine whether your actions are destructive or not.
Erik Naggum
| Why were you surprised? I'd have been surprised if you sold more
| than a half dozen. $500+ is a lot of money for most students to pay
| for a discretionary expense. $500 last a long time at IHOP's all
| you can eat pancake special!
Well, if you stay away from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, junk food, soft
drinks, and "unexpected" pregnancies and actually spend your time
and money on studying, $500 is _not_ a lot of money to invest in
your future. Not that asceticism is necessarily a virtue (note that
I did not exclude the #1 favorite extracurricular activity, only its
most undesirable result :), but all the "poor" students I know spent
a _lot_ more money on such stupid things than anyone would recommend
so I have very little sympathy for the plight of "poor" students,
just like I never give a penny to beggars who smoke.
But it might be fun to see if a special discount for Student Edition
Lispers at IHOP would help sales.
Seriously, I think it would help if students could pay for their
licenses over several years, say three, instead of all of it in one
fell swoop. It would mean a much lower entry fee and probably a
more stable relationship with the student. With maintenance fees at
25%, three years of $250 each would match one year of $500 and two
years of $125. Would our IHOP all-you-can-eat-special student buy
that? :)
Xenophon Fenderson the Carbon(d)ated
Erik> Seriously, I think it would help if students could pay for
Erik> their licenses over several years, say three, instead of all
Erik> of it in one fell swoop. It would mean a much lower entry
Erik> fee and probably a more stable relationship with the
Erik> student. With maintenance fees at 25%, three years of $250
Erik> each would match one year of $500 and two years of $125.
Erik> Would our IHOP all-you-can-eat-special student buy that? :)
There is precedent for this. Where I went to college, students were
required to buy laptops. The price of the laptop (including software
such as Mathematica and Visual Studio) was included in the student's
tuition and was paid over a four-year period. I've heard of programs
(IIRC, a dental program at NYC) that have books and other research
material on CD-ROM, and again, the licensing fees are paid on the same
schedule as tuition.
Unfortunately, the barriers to entry are NOT monetary, at least for
students (or rather, no different than the barriers to paying for
college in the first place). I've yet to hear of a computer science
department or university computing center that doesn't provide
students with at least one compiler. So we're back to the problem of
convincing schools that (1) they should use Common Lisp at all and (2)
they should pay for a commercial-grade environment instead of making
do with GNU CL (and only in Intro to AI).
One of the reasons it is difficult to get quality/novel programming
environments into college is because of idiots like me. When I was a
freshman, I thought that programming was just knowing a particular
language well, like C++ (actually, Objective-C in my case).
Fortunately, I had teachers that beat into my head that one uses the
proper tool for the job, be that C, Lisp, or whatever. But I don't
think every teacher in the world thinks that way, and certainly there
is a lot of demand for C++ or Java expertise.
Now, if one is not a student, then, I think, the price tags associated
with the commercial Lisps can be a bit daunting. Redistribution
rights, especially in the case of software that could be considered a
competing product, seem to be very expensive.
--
"Remember - if all you have is an axe, every problem looks like hours of fun."
-- Frossie in the monastery
Pierre R. Mai
> If you look at companies that sell a programming language product to
> make money, their products are often not cheap. Some people have
> tried to go for the cheap / lots of copies market, like Borland and
> people like that, but not too many have succeeded: it's a dangerous
> place to be, since if you become too successful microsoft will come
> along and produce a `free' equivalent to maintain market share.
Indeed Borland/Inprise itself has repositioned itself so as to sell
mostly into the Enterprise markets: While you can still get the
Foundation or Personal editions of their products for little to no
money, nearly all serious editions are now in the $1000 price range
and above.
IMHO Borland and others in this area have indeed felt the crunch that
has been the result of all the free/subsidised offerings out there.
Mike McDonald
Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:
> Seriously, I think it would help if students could pay for their
> licenses over several years, say three, instead of all of it in one
> fell swoop. It would mean a much lower entry fee and probably a
> more stable relationship with the student. With maintenance fees at
> 25%, three years of $250 each would match one year of $500 and two
> years of $125. Would our IHOP all-you-can-eat-special student buy
> that? :)
>
> #:Erik
Not unless there was direct requirement to use Lisp for classes over that
same time period. I'm afraid most US college students don't really go to
college for an education (IMO). That's sometimes a lucky biproduct. For most,
it's a social/maturing experience that's the primary draw. Or the lure of a
high paying job if they can manage not ot flunk out.
Inorder to increase the demand for Lisp, colleges would have to decide
teaching how to think was more important than the relevancy of teaching the
last fad language. But to be fair to the colleges, a lot of that pressure
comes from industry.
"We've just invented this new language last week that's going to solve
all of the world's problems. But we need people with at least four years of
experience with it. Why isn't our local college providing the graduates with
what idustry needs? If they don't, we'll lose jobs to <insert your favorite
boogeyman state name here>!"
I don't know how to turn the tide so that critical thinking and problem
solving are valued attributes of members of a work force. I guess drones are
just easier to produce and control.
Mike McDonald
mik...@mikemac.com
Boris Schaefer
| May I ask if it was just a offer for students? If yes I understand why
| you did not sell much. I contacted Franz a year or so ago to buy a
| version. But I was just lead to the professional and enterprise
| edition. Now to that time Lispworks was simular expensive but with the
| Xanalys this changed.
Last I heard deja had stopped inserting product links in messages.
Well, apparently they haven't. The words enterprise edition in
Friedrich's article are linked to some page about the Visual Basic
Enterprise Edition if you read it on deja:
I have also heard that deja said they'd honor a
X-No-Productlinks: yes
header (or in the first line of the article), so I inserted one in
this post to see if this is true.
Anyway I think this is most annoying and I will also tell them my
opinion about that. I wouldn't like links inserted in my posts that
seem as if I had inserted them, especially not to things like Visual
Basic which I don't use and don't like.
Boris (ranting and longing for the times when deja was still dejanews,
still had the old articles prior to May 1999 and didn't do annoying
things like inserting links in people's articles)
--
bo...@uncommon-sense.net - <http://www.uncommon-sense.net/>
Statistics means never having to say you're certain.
David E. Young
> As the aforementioned new edition has just become available I have taken a
> first look and noticed that now the user of this edition needs a new licence
> file every month.
>
> Extrapolating this, we shall probably need a new licence file every week
> when Allegro CL 7.0 becomes available.
>
> I understand that they want to be paid for their efforts but then maybe they
> should prefer stopping the whole "Trial Edtion Project" at all.
>
> (At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced the
> power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB instead of 16MB
> as in the previous version and this is very generous indeed.)
>
Sigh. I don't normally stick my nose into stuff like this, but now I feel
compelled.
Folks that share Mr. Blazi's opinions should keep the "big picture" in mind. I
probably needn't mention that Franz is exclusively a _software_ company whose
high-quality product is not quite a commodity (my hope is that Lisp one day
soon becomes ubiquitous, because I am sick to death of the current "state of
the art"). Franz _is_ Lisp, in the sense that Lisp and Lisp-related sales are
the sole revenue of the company (sorry, I'm presuming an awful lot but I think
this is correct). I for one want a healthy Franz (and Xanalys) for the sake of
Lisp.
Now, let me speak to policy. As others have said on this topic, I find it
difficult to understand the complaints regarding the new licensing scheme.
Franz has made the license renewal process trivial (run a program, get a
license), and if one has special needs one picks up the phone and asks. My
company could be a poster child for Franz' willingness to promote Lisp through
cooperation; for 22 months I have been evangelizing Lisp, pushing against the
Java propaganda machine and producing high-quality, product-oriented prototypes
in very short amounts of time; all in an effort to get some folks here to think
"out of the box" and see how significantly Lisp could help us. The battle
against myopia continues, but Franz has steadfastly sent numerous eval copies
of ACL (and ORBLink), information on industry uses of Lisp, etc. etc. Indeed,
both Franz and Xanalys have been very supportive of my efforts. Do they have a
vested, monetary interest in my success? Of course! So what? The bigger picture
is the potential proliferation of Lisp and a move to more intelligent sofware
engineering.
And so.
Regards,
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Young
Fujitsu Network Communications "The fact that ... we still
(david...@fnc.fujitsu.com) live well cannot ease the pain of
feeling that we no longer live nobly."
-- John Updike
"Programming should be fun,
programs should be beautiful"
-- P. Graham
Paolo Amoroso
> I don't receive messages from Janos, so let me ask here: is MSVC++
> free? Last time I saw it cost hundreds and thousands of dollars for
> anything not being a toy version. Not that I would need or want it for
A few years ago Microsoft--at least in Italy--offered a VC++ 4.0 and VB 4.0
(professional editions for both) bundle to students for the equivalent of
about 75$.
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
Paolo Amoroso
> weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
Just out of curiosity, what were the main features and limitations of that
Student Edition? For which operating systems was it available?
glauber
whatever price they want to sell it for. If you need a less expensive
alternative, use Clisp and/or (if your platform is supported) Corman or
CMUCL.
--
Glauber Ribeiro
thegl...@my-deja.com http://www.myvehiclehistoryreport.com
"Opinions stated are my own and not representative of Experian"
Lyman Taylor
>
....
> Not unless there was direct requirement to use Lisp for classes over that
> same time period.
Or a likely possibility of landing a internship where Lisp would
prove helpful.
Use of Lisp in multiple classes is also a issue when it comes to
budgeting for site license(s). It is difficult to pay for a site
license out of the budget for a single class or several classes of
small class sizes.
> Inorder to increase the demand for Lisp, colleges would have to decide
> teaching how to think was more important than the relevancy of teaching the
> last fad language. But to be fair to the colleges, a lot of that pressure
> comes from industry.
It isn't always "fad" languages. Many employers pound the table for
"C-like" programming skills.
The other catch-22 is that unless you are on many employer's "A list"
of recruiting locations then you can also have trouble attracting
the top students. At that point you're caught in a cycle.
So the pressure comes from both directions. Unfortunately while you
expect somewhat unenlighted objectives from the student side, it
about as equally unenlighted from employer side also.
> I don't know how to turn the tide so that critical thinking and problem
> solving are valued attributes of members of a work force. I guess drones are
> just easier to produce and control.
Industry (especially high tech in the US) wants people who were
trained on somebody else's dollar. So many want the
students to have a year or more of mainstream language XX (i.e.,
C, Java, etc.) under their belt. Preferabally using the development
tools that they aready use in house. ( well probably not the source
control, but as much a possible.) Not that knowledge of tool use is
unimportant. However, I suspect more newcomers with step on
domain misunderstanding "landmines" than on incorrectly use whatever
tool the company has standarised upon.
Cynically, It isn't "drones" but replacable industrial "cogs" that
they want. Less cynically, it is drive to fill immediate (your company's
stock price is only as good as its last quarter) objectives rather than
a "long term acquistion". For Silicon Valley where some folks change
jobs about as often as the seasons.... why look for long term skills?
Lyman
Lyman Taylor
>
...
> if we were prepared to underwrite the development :-) UltraSPARC is
> the looming requirement.
Yeah that would be handy.... kind of a bummer when your sitting on a
box with >4 GB of RAM in it and you bump into the 2 GB user space
limit.
> 32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
I suspect that's 64-bit floats where declarations/optimizations allow.
:-)
Lyman
Erik Naggum
| I'm afraid most US college students don't really go to college for
| an education (IMO).
That's fine with me. I don't have to care about every college
student to be able to reach but a few of them. I leave such caring
about everybody to brilliant minds like that of George W. Bush,
which has me wondering what the GOP _rejects_ were like. Christ.
| Inorder to increase the demand for Lisp, colleges would have to
| decide teaching how to think was more important than the relevancy
| of teaching the last fad language.
Or they could at the very least ensure that those who attend them
are not actively discouraged if they happen to want an education.
| I don't know how to turn the tide so that critical thinking and
| problem solving are valued attributes of members of a work force.
I do: Quit thinking that you're _ever_ dealing with masses. If you
cannot bring yourself to be satisified that you reach a brain, but
have to be disappointed because you can't change a culture, give up
before you hurt every brain you could have reached and the culture
gets you.
| I guess drones are just easier to produce and control.
The whole concept of educating lots of _very_ different children at
the same pace in an "industrial" setting that forced everybody to be
exposed to the same tasks at the same time even though there is very
solid evidence that this hurts both the weak and the strong children
is a product of the industrial revolution, when factories wanted
lots of people who could obey a central authority figure (teacher,
floor manager, same shit). Drones are easier to produce in such a
system because that is the express purpose, and it has never even
_tried_ anything else. That's why the drones must be _ignored_.
When the time comes, they will do what those you taught tell them.
Lyman Taylor
....
> Student-Version:
> Example Limitations:
> Heap up to 32 MB Ram (So no really _big_applications)
> No deployment-tools
> No commercial development
> No support
> No IDE
> and possibly some more...
>
> Price somewhere around 300-450$
What's the difference between the above and Corman Lisp, CLISP, and/or
CMUCL(**)? Pragmatically, from a student on a limited budget, I don't
see much of a difference. All of the above will likely be up to the
task of doing the vast majority of homework assignments.
Since the alternatives are free (gratis), in relation $300-450 is
approxiamately infinately more expensive. It isn't just
a question of disposable income. It is also a matter of relative
pricing for relatively equivalent "products".
[ NOTE: as a student/hobbyist it is highly likely that you have
more time than money. So more money for tool packaging and
optimizations can be traded off for time. As a non-commerical
enterprise money is not the primary dominating factor. ]
No tools, no support (besides comp.lang.lisp of course :-) ) , no
IDE (although I imagine the intended meaning there is no GUI builder
as oppose to the tool having no GUI "face" ).
So way I see it. Are students/hobbyists willing to pay $300-450 dollars
for a GUI face on a lisp? I suspect the answer in generally
is no. I was a TA for large class that used Common Lisp for many
years. The students largely selected whatever was minimally acceptable
for the machine upon they were going to they work .
Maybe $99.00 (i.e., Metrowerks/Microsoft price for their "educational"
'C' products). The student version of MCL is about half $300 and it
is the REAL thing! (OK you don't get redistribution rights and you
have to validate you're a student and MCL has economic questions. )
IMHO, this trial edition pricing is more marketing than economics.
Franz selling Porches (from a US perspective... I don't know
how they are priced in Europe). They're a boutique selling
above average expensive stuff. It is tough to make that sell for a
boatload of Benjamins when there is a "econobox" discount
car over in the cover of the showroom.
There is also a need to segment those who flip to the cheaper product
and bypass the non-commerical restrictions when they clearly have
commerical enterprise in mind. ( while other language
compiler vendors have the similar problems their base population is
larger).
(**) I don't inlcude GCL. When I was a head TA I didn't recommend
GCL since
i. it is increasing divergent with the ANSI standard in relation
to the alternatives.
ii. it had the annoying "feature" of accepting non standard
(thereby
nonportable) syntax. (e.g., silently accepting excess right
parens. )
Lyman
Lyman Taylor
>
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:46:30 GMT, Robert Monfera <mon...@fisec.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't receive messages from Janos, so let me ask here: is MSVC++
> > free? Last time I saw it cost hundreds and thousands of dollars for
> > anything not being a toy version. Not that I would need or want it for
>
> A few years ago Microsoft--at least in Italy--offered a VC++ 4.0 and VB 4.0
> (professional editions for both) bundle to students for the equivalent of
> about 75$.
A few years ago at US Higher Education Sites Microsoft as selling the
basic VC++ 5.0 (or 6.0) along with a "bonus" Windows NT 4.0. for about
$99. [ I bet student's exposure Windows NT went up after that. I know
mine did. That was cheaper than buying the educational priced NT 4.0
by itself.]
While Microsoft has the funds to "buy" mindshare the commerical
lisp vendors don't. At least not to that broadbase extent.
This is a highly sucessful marketing tool practiced
but many industrial companies. Put you products in front of the students
"at cost" and when they go off to there worksplaces that's all they are
trained upon. Therefore, that's what their employers will buy. Witness
Sun's dominance in educational locations and "dot coms" predilection
for the same.
For the compiler tools I suspect $60-99 is about "at cost" when you
factor in the packaging, middlemen, and miscellaneous expenses.
Lyman
sun...@cad.strath.ac.uk
> The platform list for 6.0 is already set and does not include Mac OS X,
> but it is possible we'd offer it in the future.
I have one more question....
If you offer ACL on OS X, then will it have GUI tools same as windows or not?
Sungwoo
Jochen Schmidt
> Jochen Schmidt wrote:
> ....
> > Student-Version:
> > Example Limitations:
> > Heap up to 32 MB Ram (So no really _big_applications)
> > No deployment-tools
> > No commercial development
> > No support
> > No IDE
> > and possibly some more...
> >
> > Price somewhere around 300-450$
>
> What's the difference between the above and Corman Lisp, CLISP, and/or
> CMUCL(**)? Pragmatically, from a student on a limited budget, I don't
> see much of a difference. All of the above will likely be up to the
> task of doing the vast majority of homework assignments.
CMUCL is nice and fast, but only runs on UN*X-boxes. I mainly use UN*X-boxes
but also want to run my applications and as much other platforms as I can.
CLISP is also nice and highly portable, but lacks a native compiler and
much of the CLOS-functionality of ACL or LispWorks. (Yes you can use PCL
but ithere are worlds between te commercial CLOS+MOP and the free (PCL)
ones.
Through the high price of Lisp-Environments I'am "forced" to use mainly
CLISP and CMUCL for my work ("forced" is exaggerated as I like this
programs really!)
Regards,
Jochen Schmidt
Robert Monfera
> > We had a version called the Student Edition,
> > that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> > higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
>
> Why were you surprised? I'd have been surprised if you sold more than a half
> dozen. $500+ is a lot of money for most students to pay for a discretionary
> expense. $500 last a long time at IHOP's all you can eat pancake special!
It is a lot of money, but as a benchmark, a lot of students these days
buy laptops between $1500 and $3000.
Probably Franz would be most happy if it could distribute cheap copies
among students and moonlighters *while* making sure it does not
cannibalize sales in the commercial domain.
Robert
Bruce Hoult
> One of the reasons it is difficult to get quality/novel programming
> environments into college is because of idiots like me. When I was a
> freshman, I thought that programming was just knowing a particular
> language well, like C++ (actually, Objective-C in my case).
> Fortunately, I had teachers that beat into my head that one uses the
> proper tool for the job, be that C, Lisp, or whatever. But I don't
> think every teacher in the world thinks that way, and certainly there
> is a lot of demand for C++ or Java expertise.
Yeah, and that's a strange thing, because I wasn't like that at all. I
remember in the 3rd year of my CS degree (1983) pretty much none of the
programming assignments we had actually specified what language you
should do them in -- I think it was assumed that you'd use VAX Pascal
and indeed 99% of the students did just that. I, on the other hand,
went out of my way to try each of the wierd or experimental languages
lying around on the VAX and do a project (typically 1000 - 2000 lines or
code) using them. So I submitted projects using Modula-2, BCPL, STOIC
(a type of FORTH) and probably a couple of others that I don't recall
now -- I know I at least played with FranzLisp and Prolog and some
functional language (Hope?), but I may not have submitted assignments in
them.
I thought I might get some opposition from the teachers, but I never had
a problem and always seemed to get good grades for them.
-- Bruce
Bruce Hoult
<bo...@uncommon-sense.net> wrote:
> Friedrich Dominicus <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> writes:
>
> | May I ask if it was just a offer for students? If yes I understand why
> | you did not sell much. I contacted Franz a year or so ago to buy a
> | version. But I was just lead to the professional and enterprise
> | edition. Now to that time Lispworks was simular expensive but with the
> | Xanalys this changed.
>
> Last I heard deja had stopped inserting product links in messages.
> Well, apparently they haven't. The words enterprise edition in
> Friedrich's article are linked to some page about the Visual Basic
> Enterprise Edition if you read it on deja:
>
> http://x53.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=687440453.1&mhitnum=11&C
> ONTEXT=972908044.1509359670
So use the "classic" mode -- it's still there.
<http://deja.com/=dnc/article/687440453>
Or if you want to be *really* spartan, go to text mode.
<http://deja.com/article/687440453&fmt=text>
-- Bruce
Chris Page
lyman....@mindspring.com.no.spam wrote on 2000.10.30 2:21 PM:
> A few years ago at US Higher Education Sites Microsoft as selling the basic
> VC++ 5.0 (or 6.0) along with a "bonus" Windows NT 4.0. for about $99...This is
> a highly sucessful marketing tool practiced but many industrial companies.
In fact, I once heard that Microsoft's development tools were funded out of
the marketing budget. Makes sense to me, as long as your company isn't
selling development tools as its main business. And if it is, I don't think
you can expect it to do anything nearly this aggressive (e.g., Franz).
--
Chris Page
let mailto = concatenate( "page", "@", "best.com" );
Kent M Pitman
> ... I submitted projects using Modula-2, BCPL, STOIC
> (a type of FORTH) and probably a couple of others that I don't recall
> now ...
> I thought I might get some opposition from the teachers, but I never had
> a problem and always seemed to get good grades for them.
By contrast, I got in horrible trouble turning in projects in Lisp
that were supposed to be done in Clu. Depends very much like the teacher.
But I did try to be tolerant of others doing this when I later became
a grader for a class in computer calculus. We officially asked for
things done in BASIC, but I accepted Lisp and even APL answers. It sure
was a lot of work trying to decipher the APL to see if maybe it was doing
something remotely like what we'd assigned. But I was determined to prove
that what I'd inflicted on other teachers wasn't something I wouldn't be
able to endure myself. Plus I'd have hated to kill a rebellious spirit
in a world too full of conformists.
Frank Brickle
Lyman Taylor <lyman....@mindspring.com.no.spam> wrote:
> Yeah that would be handy.... kind of a bummer when your sitting on a
> box with >4 GB of RAM in it and you bump into the 2 GB user space
> limit.
2^29 isn't a very big number in some settings.
>> 32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
>
> I suspect that's 64-bit floats where declarations/optimizations allow.
>:-)
The last I spoke with them about it, ca. 4 or 5 years ago, the answer
was "probably not."
Frank
Boris Schaefer
| > Last I heard deja had stopped inserting product links in messages.
| > Well, apparently they haven't. The words enterprise edition in
| > Friedrich's article are linked to some page about the Visual Basic
| > Enterprise Edition if you read it on deja:
| >
| > http://x53.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=687440453.1&mhitnum=11&C
| > ONTEXT=972908044.1509359670
|
| So use the "classic" mode -- it's still there.
|
| <http://deja.com/=dnc/article/687440453>
Where do you have to click to get to classic mode? I just took a look
at deja and I didn't see it.
| Or if you want to be *really* spartan, go to text mode.
|
| <http://deja.com/article/687440453&fmt=text>
Yes, well, that's not my point. I just don't like them to insert
links into my message so that it appears as if *I* have inserted them.
That's my source of annoyance. I want my articles' contents as I have
written them. I believe that by posting to Usenet I give people the
right to copy my article more or less freely, but mucking around with
the content ... I don't think so. It's bad enough that they
completely break formatting (by default), but altering the message's
content just goes way too far IMNSHO (and to me, hyperlinking some
words in messages *is* altering its content).
They can place ads or whatever around my messages if they want to. I
have nothing against that, but they should leave the content as I have
written it. You might say that having plain-text and classic mode is
redeeming. Well, it is a bit redeeming, but since they're not the
default, it doesn't improve my view of them very much.
Incidentally, the X-No-Productlinks: yes header did not work. If you
look at my original message in deja (not in classic or plain mode)
then you'll see that in the quoted text the words "enterprise edition"
are highlighted and in my own text the words "Visual Basic" are
highlighted. Argh.
Boris, even more annoyed at deja now.
If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.
Bruce Hoult
<bo...@uncommon-sense.net> wrote:
> Bruce Hoult <br...@hoult.org> writes:
>
> | > Last I heard deja had stopped inserting product links in messages.
> | > Well, apparently they haven't. The words enterprise edition in
> | > Friedrich's article are linked to some page about the Visual Basic
> | > Enterprise Edition if you read it on deja:
> | >
> | > http://x53.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=687440453.1&mhitnum=
> | > 11&C
> | > ONTEXT=972908044.1509359670
> |
> | So use the "classic" mode -- it's still there.
> |
> | <http://deja.com/=dnc/article/687440453>
>
> Where do you have to click to get to classic mode? I just took a look
> at deja and I didn't see it.
In the "power Search" screen, select results type = "Deja Classic".
I also find the following web page handy:
<http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/deja.html>
-- Bruce
Janos Blazi
that?
> And you still think you're smack dab in the middle of the people who
> are the likely target audience of their efforts?
I should like to be told, what "smack dab" means. My English is not as good
as yours.
> As far as I can
> see from your past and present contributions here, you never intend
> to purchase a license from them, anyway.
Well, at some point and at the price I was talking about, I probably should
have at some point.
> Is it really honest of you
> to complain that what you get for free is not free enough?
I did not complain, I only stated that in my opinion their scheme was
strange. I did not understand, why this "new licence evry month" condition
was necessary. And I think it was honest. Finally my posting had the effect
that a lot of people talked a lot about Franz and I do not believe I caused
them any damage. So I think that my first posting was not dishonest.
>
> How many customers in your price range do you think Franz Inc would
> need to be able to do your bidding? I think 100,000 would be a fair
> suggestion. Do you think there _are_ that many Common Lisp users
> just waiting for a mass-market price? I know there aren't.
I accept this. They most likely know how to run their business.
>
> If Franz Inc's expensive (for them) and therefore generous Trial
> Edition project means they get 100 new staying customers, while
> making it possible for perhaps many more people to try it out, they
> have made a huge win, both for themselves _and_ for Common Lisp.
Yes.
> That Janos Blazi, who would never become a customer, anyway, whines
> and whimpers is a loss, both for Franz Inc _and_ for Common Lisp.
Mr. Janos Blazi Esq. please.
But now you are exaggerating. I am completely unimportant.
> It's no secret that I think you're the stupidest person who has ever
> remained a recurring phenomenon on comp.lang.lisp,
To me this was a secret as there were many other candidates and your fan
club, dear Eric, is still growing. (Though for a few months I have had the
impression that you have been becoming calmer.)
But your statement includes a compliment if I can follow you. So there were
posters who were more stupid but they are not recurrent.
>but I still want
>you to consider what you are doing to hurt the language you want to
>use by your useless whining and whimpering against the free offering
>of a product you never intend to purchase, anyway.
Now it would be hard to prove that the number of people who use Lisp has
become less since I started my posting. I do not think either that Franz
Inc. sales has gone down due to my postings.
> It is psychologically difficult to accept that you keep posting. I
> suggest you stop until you have become more used to exert the effort
> required to determine whether your actions are destructive or not.
It would be nice to meet you personally. Are you going to visit Germany in
the near future?
J.B.
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Erik Naggum
| It is a bit unusual that you are using capitals. Is there any reason
| for that?
My God, your reaction time is 6 _months_.
I'll answer your message sometime in May, 2001, or I may forget.
Boris Schaefer
| * "Janos Blazi" <jbl...@netsurf.de>
| | It is a bit unusual that you are using capitals. Is there any reason
| | for that?
|
| My God, your reaction time is 6 _months_.
|
| I'll answer your message sometime in May, 2001, or I may forget.
Well, I noticed it earlier, but never asked. You once said to someone
who asked that you had already explained the reason about 5 times, but
when I searched deja, I didn't find any trace of these explanations.
Would you mind explaining it a little earlier than May, 2001, or give
away the Message-Id of some article where you explained it. I'm
genuinely interested in your reason for this change.
Thanks,
Boris
I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you.
Erik Naggum
| Would you mind explaining it a little earlier than May, 2001, or
| give away the Message-Id of some article where you explained it.
| I'm genuinely interested in your reason for this change.
Well, what I have explained several times is why randomly upcasing
letters is a very bad thing to do, especially if the randomness has
only _some_ systematic elements to it, such as that the word just
happens to be the first in a sentence with no other reason to get
upcased.
However, people being what they are, the resistance to improvements
that can be easily explained and even understood undermined the
goal, and so I decided to move to published quality on USENET, too,
even though it is mostly initial draft quality and thus should look
like it. That is, I have some code in Emacs that lets me avoid that
silly initial capital letter, unless it really should be capitalized
because of the word, not the position, while typing, turning it into
the loser-friendly initial-capitals-anyway style before posting, but
after saving the local copy.
Robert Monfera
> Well, what I have explained several times is why randomly upcasing
> letters is a very bad thing to do [...] such as that the word just
> happens to be the first in a sentence with no other reason to get
> upcased.
Capitalizing the first letter does serve specific purposes, such as
making scan reading easier. Maybe you were you encouraging a strict
sequential reading of your postings?
Robert
Erik Naggum
| Capitalizing the first letter does serve specific purposes, such as
| making scan reading easier. Maybe you were you encouraging a strict
| sequential reading of your postings?
When the purpose is information preservation, not information loss,
I think scan reading is among the least interesting qualities for
which to optimize anything. However, if something like this works
to _discourage_ scan reading, _that_ is a very interesting quality.
Erik Naggum
| Of course, people who've studied the history of the book (which I
| haven't particularly), will happily point out that capitalization
| (the use of majiscules at the beginning of sentences), punctuation
| (including the use of spaces between words), and even paragraphing
| were all _invented_ to ease the reading process [1].
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Please try to get the point, and try to
control that trigger-itchy posting finger with your special agenda
physically attached to it. Please also _try_ to use your reading
skills to such astonishing endeavors as actually observing that
nobody is arguing against whitespace or punctutation. Christ, guys,
go nuts for all I care, but keep it within _range_ of what is being
discussed, will you?
What _I_ observed when I wanted to preserve the case of _words_ was
that a fairly large number of people went ballistic over this and
losing their marbles in the process. Actually being able to deal
with a single, isolated change to a system they do not understand
how came to be, was impossible: They react as if the whole system
was rejected, and spelling and grammar with it, in my cases. I must
admit that I found such people tremendously entertaining for a
while, but watching crazy people go lemming over the far edge of
reason got old fast. I imagined a sphinxter so tight it would have
saved the Kursk crew, setting new records in anal retentive behavior
and the like, but really, why is it _impossible_ for those who think
that the entire world order and humanity's last chance rests with
capitalizing that first letter of a sentence to realize that their
fears might not be true.
I am very well aware of the arguments for typography, and I have in
fact studied it, but that does not mean that I have to agree that
the information-destroying _print_ habit of losing case information
for the first word in a sentence is smart for electronic text before
it goes to print. Almost everything is improved by case sensitivity
(such as Common Lisp, to keep this marginally on topic :), and
search engines that didn't match all kinds of words when you search
for proper names would be a good thing. But not as long as the anal
retentives come crawling out of the woodwork every time they don't
get the difference between source code for a book (electronic text)
and published print copy.
Boris Schaefer
| Well, what I have explained several times is why randomly upcasing
| letters is a very bad thing to do, especially if the randomness has
| only _some_ systematic elements to it, such as that the word just
| happens to be the first in a sentence with no other reason to get
| upcased.
That probably was before May 1999, because I searched deja for
"naggum" and several combinations of "character" and "up", "down" and
"lower case" and nothing in that vein turned up. I vaguely remember
it though. deja killed the archives of articles before some day in
May 1999 about 6 months ago. The previous sentence shows a thing I
don't like about capitalization at the beginning of sentences: "deja"
just should not be capitalized, just because it's at the start of a
sentence, it's their name and "Deja" looks wrong, IMHO, but in general
I find texts without the usual capitalization harder to read. It
might simply be lack of experience, though. I have no idea.
Anyway, the killing of the archives might explain my failure to find
anything on that subject, without resorting to the other obvious
explanation that I'm too stupid to search (and find).
Ah well, thanks for explaining it again,
Boris
Friction is a drag.
David J. Fiander
> Well, what I have explained several times is why randomly upcasing
> letters is a very bad thing to do, especially if the randomness has
> only _some_ systematic elements to it, such as that the word just
> happens to be the first in a sentence with no other reason to get
> upcased.
Of course, people who've studied the history of the book (which I
haven't particularly), will happily point out that capitalization
(the use of majiscules at the beginning of sentences),
punctuation (including the use of spaces between words), and even
paragraphing were all _invented_ to ease the reading process [1].
Before such things, one had to be trained to read _every_ text,
since one had to learn where the word boundaries were supposed to
be.
Think of initial majiscules as a well-founded ergonomic device in
the user interface of printed text.
- David
[1] For more on this topic, see Manguel, Alberto. A history of
reading. Toronto: Knopf (1996).
--
David J. Fiander | We know for certain only when we know little.
Librarian | With knowlege, doubt increases
| - Goethe
Marco Antoniotti
djfi...@sympatico.ca (David J. Fiander) writes:
> Think of initial majiscules
^^^^^^^^^^
Is this the correct English translation of the Italian "maiuscole"?
What about the opposite? "minuscole". :)
Cheers
Marco
--
Marco Antoniotti =============================================================
NYU Bioinformatics Group tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488
719 Broadway 12th Floor fax +1 - 212 - 995 4122
New York, NY 10003, USA http://galt.mrl.nyu.edu/valis
Like DNA, such a language [Lisp] does not go out of style.
Paul Graham, ANSI Common Lisp
Tim Bradshaw
>
> Is this the correct English translation of the Italian "maiuscole"?
> What about the opposite? "minuscole". :)
>
I think it's just the term used in typography -- majiscule &
miniscule. I've never heard `majiscule' other than to refer to
letters, and I've heard `miniscule' in other contexts only to mean
`very small', which isn't really the same meaning.
--tim
David J. Fiander
>
> I think it's just the term used in typography -- majiscule &
> miniscule. I've never heard `majiscule' other than to refer to
> letters, and I've heard `miniscule' in other contexts only to mean
> `very small', which isn't really the same meaning.
>
I have to apologize a bit. I misspelled it. The words are
"majuscule" and "minuscule" They're not in my 8th ed. Concise
Oxford, but they are in my Shorter (which is at home).
www.m-w.com knows about both, but only ascribes the "lower-case"
meaning to the latter.
Then again, the terms "upper-case" and "lower-case" are from the
traditional relative placement of the slugs in a typecase
(literally a case holding type).
- David
Thom Goodsell
>
> Is this the correct English translation of the Italian "maiuscole"?
> What about the opposite? "minuscole". :)
Assuming these have the same meaning in Italian as their cognates in
Portuguese, "upper case" and "lower case" are the English terms in
common usage. I'm not familiar with technical usage regarding
typsetting (on which someone else commented).
Thom
--
Thom Goodsell t...@cra.com
Scientist (617) 491-3474 x574
Charles River Analytics http://www.cra.com/
Tim Bradshaw
> Assuming these have the same meaning in Italian as their cognates in
> Portuguese, "upper case" and "lower case" are the English terms in
> common usage. I'm not familiar with technical usage regarding
> typsetting (on which someone else commented).
>
upper and lower case refer specifically to type, I'm not sure if the
terms can be used more generally. I'm not sure if you could refer to
a Carolingian minuscule as `lower case' for instance. Perhaps you
can, someone is bound to know.
--tim, who may or may not be able to spell `Carolingian' and
`minuscule' correctly...
Robert Monfera
> When the purpose is information preservation, not information loss,
> I think scan reading is among the least interesting qualities for
> which to optimize anything. However, if something like this works
> to _discourage_ scan reading, _that_ is a very interesting quality.
Let me assure you that your thoughts are modular enough to enable
information _transmittal_ even with-scan-reading-enabled. Human readers
don't do information _preservation_, Usenet does.
Speaking of discouraging scan reading, I recall how much fun it is to
navigate through an automated telephone answering service when what you
want is always the last option at the deepest level. That option must
be the most expensive, and access is thus penalized.
Robert
Xah Lee
of a braggadocio of failed fancies.
what an stupendous incongruousness.
the crookedness of a doctor Naggum.
Xah
x...@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
Erik Naggum
| Let me assure you that your thoughts are modular enough to enable
| information _transmittal_ even with-scan-reading-enabled. Human
| readers don't do information _preservation_, Usenet does.
I was operating under the assumption that what is good for high
information value is not good for fast scan reading and vice versa.
There are lots of things we can do to the information to make it
easier to digest by people, but which makes it much, much harder for
machines to retrieve same. As witness the drive towards graphics
and layout that makes it nigh impossible for a machine to figure out
what is being communicated on "modern" web pages. Most of the stuff
that is done to preserve accuracy in presentation lowers the speed
of access by humans. This has to do with how our consciousness
works, which has had some, but not an impressing lot, to do with how
we designed our computers, writing systems, etc, mainly because we
know so little about it.
| Speaking of discouraging scan reading, I recall how much fun it is
| to navigate through an automated telephone answering service when
| what you want is always the last option at the deepest level. That
| option must be the most expensive, and access is thus penalized.
The speed at which we absorb information from the outside world is
incredibly low, it could use a thousand-fold increase, but if you
have an issue with linearization of presentation and representation
of information, it is just silly to argue for _or_ against initial
capitals, automated telephones, etc. If you really think this is an
important issue, and I think it is, transcending linearization may
be accomplished with more computer-friendly ways to communicate, in
that the computer can scan for us and present us with a condensation
of the communication, into which we can navigate once the computer
understands what is going on. Ironically, this requires that we
dispense with the notion that consuption by the human eye is the one
true factor to optimize for, and it becomes an argument _against_
the many information-destroying aspects that the human need to make
it easier to read has spawned.
Do we really need to use the _specific_ technique of abusing the
capital letter to indicate sentence start when we already use it to
indicate proper nams? You may have noticed that I use two spaces
after a sentence-terminating punctuation, and that I don't use a
period after abbreviations. (I know one guy who was so upset about
the capitals that he dragged in whitespace and punctuation and who
_should_ have noticed this, but didn't.) There are other ways to
make that sentence start stand out than the initial capital letter
that does not introduce information loss and useless ambiguity.
Kent M Pitman
> Do we really need to use the _specific_ technique of abusing the
> capital letter to indicate sentence start when we already use it to
> indicate proper nams? You may have noticed that I use two spaces
> after a sentence-terminating punctuation, and that I don't use a
> period after abbreviations.
I do this, too, since that's what I was taught in typing class but it's a
dwindling art form and I'm having to teach myself to unlearn it because a
lot of commercially produced typesetting systems (can't remember which, but
I'm thinking things like Word and FrameMaker) do poorly with this. Rather
than recognize double space as a single "end of sentence" token, they
either treat each space separately (creating excess space) or they contract
it automatically as if it were an error or do other bizarre effects related
to selection. Even Emacs assumes "Mr." at the end of a line is a sentence
ender when doing meta-q (fill-paragraph), rather than having a table of
common abbreviations after which it should insert only one space instead of
two...
Xah Lee
if schooling is your argument _for_ double spacing, then you should know
that since the era of Desktop publishing circa 1990, people are taught that
the double spacing taught to typist is not suitable for typing on computers,
because computer's variable width font obviate such need for clarity, and if
you check printed materials, you'll find that is true, that they are not
using double spacing to start a sentence.
here we have doctor Naggum chasing his whimsy. On such a minuscule and lame
proportions too. Suing every joe on his way and making a giant splash of
show. I might deem it amusing if it is a cause initiated by laziness of
shifting (which is a good reason in the name of convenience), but after
paying attention to learn the real bloated reason, it's more laughable than
ever.
this disclosure shows that visionaries have stupid ideas too. _Lots_ of it.
Readers, you need to pay attention, and decide which is good, and which is
amusing.
Xah
x...@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
> From: Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com>
> Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
> Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 17:03:10 GMT
> Subject: Re: Allegro CL 6.0 Trial Edition
>
Boris Schaefer
| if schooling is your argument _for_ double spacing, then you should
| know that since the era of Desktop publishing circa 1990, people are
| taught that the double spacing taught to typist is not suitable for
| typing on computers, because computer's variable width font obviate
| such need for clarity,
Variable width fonts have been around far longer than computers, so
this cannot really be the reason.
| and if you check printed materials, you'll find that is true, that
| they are not using double spacing to start a sentence.
Well, I did check some books, and sure enough I did find many with
increased inter-sentence spacing. Although, the only non-computer
related, technical books I found with increased inter-sentence spacing
are: _The Control of Nature_ by John McPhee and _Perception and
Communication_ by D.E. Broadbent. The former has only very slightly
increased spacing between sentences, whereas the latter has Really Big
inter-sentence spaces and most certainly was not written using some
non-existent (in 1958) desktop publishing software, but (as I can
easily see) it _is_ typeset in a variable-width font.
| [...] I might deem it amusing if it is a cause initiated by laziness
| of shifting (which is a good reason in the name of convenience)
Since when is laziness a _good_ reason for anything?
Boris
You're never too old to become younger.
-- Mae West
Lieven Marchand
> Do we really need to use the _specific_ technique of abusing the
> capital letter to indicate sentence start when we already use it to
> indicate proper nams?
You must really appreciate German ;-)
Anybody got any Idea where or when this quaint Practice originated in
German?
--
Lieven Marchand <m...@bewoner.dma.be>
Lambda Calculus - Call us a mad Club
Janos Blazi
>
> Anybody got any Idea where or when this quaint Practice originated in
> German?
Have you read Gulliver's Travels? Just do and you will be suprised.
vsync
> lot of commercially produced typesetting systems (can't remember which, but
> I'm thinking things like Word and FrameMaker) do poorly with this. Rather
did you just use "Word" and "typesetting systems" in the same
sentence?
incidentally, I agree completely with Erik on this issue. one other
thing: I've always wondered why "I" is capitalized and "me" is not,
along with any other pronoun. consistency would be nice.
--
vsync
http://quadium.net/ - last updated Sat Nov 4 01:05:18 PST 2000
(cons (cons (car (cons 'c 'r)) (cdr (cons 'a 'o))) ; Orjner
(cons (cons (car (cons 'n 'c)) (cdr (cons nil 's))) nil))
Bruce Hoult
<bo...@uncommon-sense.net> wrote:
> Xah Lee <x...@xahlee.org> writes:
>
> | if schooling is your argument _for_ double spacing, then you should
> | know that since the era of Desktop publishing circa 1990, people are
> | taught that the double spacing taught to typist is not suitable for
> | typing on computers, because computer's variable width font obviate
> | such need for clarity,
>
> Variable width fonts have been around far longer than computers, so
> this cannot really be the reason.
No, typesetters have always used a single space, it's just that it's
only since 1990 (well, OK, 1985 in my case) that large numbers of people
have been doing their own typesetting using PostScript, PageMaker and
the like.
-- Bruce
Xah Lee
> Xah Lee <x...@xahlee.org> writes:
> | if schooling is your argument _for_ double spacing, then you should
> | know that since the era of Desktop publishing circa 1990, people are
> | taught that the double spacing taught to typist is not suitable for
> | typing on computers, because computer's variable width font obviate
> | such need for clarity,
Boris Schaefer <bo...@uncommon-sense.net> wrote:
> Variable width fonts have been around far longer than computers, so
> this cannot really be the reason.
For once, let's be exact and see if we have anything to argue.
What exactly is your point? I'll tell you what's my point in the first
paragraph of my previous email: Kent Pitman's wobbling comments (again). He
commented about how he was taught to type two spaces to start a sentence,
and later on how software doesn't support that practice. Then, _I_,
commented that perhaps he's out of sync with typing/typography academy for
too long, because computer users are taught to discard the typist's habit of
starting a sentence with two spaces. Got that?
Xah wrote:
> | and if you check printed materials, you'll find that is true, that
> | they are not using double spacing to start a sentence.
Boris Schaefer wrote:
> Well, I did check some books, and sure enough I did find many with
> increased inter-sentence spacing. Although, the only non-computer
> related, technical books I found with increased inter-sentence spacing
> are: _The Control of Nature_ by John McPhee and _Perception and
> Communication_ by D.E. Broadbent. The former has only very slightly
> increased spacing between sentences, whereas the latter has Really Big
> inter-sentence spaces and most certainly was not written using some
> non-existent (in 1958) desktop publishing software, but (as I can
> easily see) it _is_ typeset in a variable-width font.
It may be sensible that the beginning of sentences be rendered with a wider
gap, but it does not mean that typing two spaces to begin a sentence is a
good practice. In my opinion, it is not, with more weightily stupid reasons
than Naggum's grand verbiage or Kent's humble mumbling.
Xah wrote:
> | [...] I might deem it amusing if it is a cause initiated by laziness
> | of shifting (which is a good reason in the name of convenience)
Boris Schaefer wrote:
> Since when is laziness a _good_ reason for anything?
You misread my frame of mind. The way the world is are in no small part due
to the the way humans are (aka human nature), and laziness & sloppiness are
an integral part of human nature. Specifically, if everyone start not to use
caps, then that will become "correct".
Not pressing the shift key in emails, is not uncommon among programers. And
if Erik's reason for no caps to begin a sentence is similar to it, then it's
normal and well supported. But he has to emanate a baggage of shit hinting
on "presentation" and "representation" fuckups and evolutionary pioneering
and in the end he noted his stupidity and drive on to become some kind of
martyring saint. His proudness about how he has an automated system that
kept an inexact record of sent mails is laughable too.
Such haughty stupidity irritates me.
Now, if any pathetics begin to be sympathetic to Naggum's plight of fancy, i
suggest you all go learn lojban (http://www.lojban.org/) and use that for
all future communication.
PS i wish to thwack those who intentionally paint laziness & sloppiness as a
virtue: such as the fucking moronic happy-go-lucky demagogueing Larry Wall
and his hill clicking Tom Christiansen & comp.lang.perl.misc union of
morons.
Xah
x...@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
Boris Schaefer
| > Variable width fonts have been around far longer than computers, so
| > this cannot really be the reason.
|
| No, typesetters have always used a single space, it's just that it's
| only since 1990 (well, OK, 1985 in my case) that large numbers of people
| have been doing their own typesetting using PostScript, PageMaker and
| the like.
A single space for what? I'm sorry I honestly don't understand that
comment.
As I said, my (borrowed) copy of _Perception and Communication_ has
variable width fonts _and_ variable width spaces (I didn't mention
that before, but I just checked). Furthermore, the space at the
beginning of a sentence is _much_ bigger than the normal spaces
between words on the same line in that book.
After more careful inspection the copy I've got is not from 1958 (as I
indicated in my original post), but is the second reprint from 1966.
I still doubt that some computer typesetting system was used to
typeset it. (Which and when was the first computer typesetting system
created, anyway?)
I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
Boris Schaefer
| What exactly is your point? [...] Then, _I_, commented that
| perhaps he's out of sync with typing/typography academy for too
| long, because computer users are taught to discard the typist's
| habit of starting a sentence with two spaces. Got that?
Yes, I got that, and it may be true, but you also said that the reason
computer users are taught to discard that habit is that it is "not
suitable for typing on computers, because computer's variable width
font obviate such need for clarity".
My point is that even though teachers might _say_ this to their
students, it cannot really be correct, because variable-width fonts
have been around longer than computers. If variable-width fonts have
been around before computers then the existence of such fonts on
computers cannot have anything to do with the reason why there is no
more perceived need for that extra clarity which was perceived some
time ago.
On the other hand, if enough teachers tell this to their students,
then it will become "true", in some twisted sense of the word.
| It may be sensible that the beginning of sentences be rendered with
| a wider gap, but it does not mean that typing two spaces to begin a
| sentence is a good practice. In my opinion, it is not, with more
| weightily stupid reasons than Naggum's grand verbiage or Kent's
| humble mumbling.
I actually think that it is a good practice, because you can use
sentence movement commands in Emacs and, in less powerful editors, you
can simply search for ". " and you will find most sentence ends,
except those with the "." at the end of a line, which is still _far_
better than what you get with single-spaced sentence ends.
| You misread my frame of mind. The way the world is are in no small
| part due to the the way humans are (aka human nature), and laziness
| & sloppiness are an integral part of human nature. Specifically, if
| everyone start not to use caps, then that will become "correct".
Yes, and I actually hope that most people writing emails fairly
sloppily will eventually cure the annoying habit of Germans upcasing
all nouns and gerunds.
Boris
For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years.
This gives me great hope for the human race.
-- Harlan Ellison
Michael Schuerig
It may be a hint that LaTeX has a command \frenchspacing that
"suppresses extra space after punctuation". (There's also the inverse
\nonfrenchspacing.)
Since I have come to know these commands, my understanding, though not
further researched, has been that US (and british?) and (continental?)
european typesetting traditions diverge. In particular, in US
typesetting sentences seem to be separated by a noticably larger space
than they are in european typesetting.
Typesetting has always allowed for finer control over spacing than
typewriting. I conjecture, that to emulate typesetting, it has been
customary in the US to type(write) two spaces after a sentence. There is
no such custom in continental europe, as far as I know.
Michael
--
Michael Schuerig
mailto:schu...@acm.org
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/
Nils Goesche
> Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.net> writes:
>
> > Do we really need to use the _specific_ technique of abusing the
> > capital letter to indicate sentence start when we already use it to
> > indicate proper nams?
>
> You must really appreciate German ;-)
>
> Anybody got any Idea where or when this quaint Practice originated in
> German?
In German, not only the beginning of a sentence and proper names are
capitalized, but also every noun. And this is a Good Thing. Some
idiots in the 70's wanted to stop doing this (mainly because their
beloved proletarians have problems to tell what a noun is) and started
writing without any capitals at all. But their texts were pretty
unreadable. Reading German becomes much easier when you immediately
see whether a particular word is used as a noun or not (and
experiments proved this). Unfortunately, the recent, completely
idiotic spelling reform messed up the old rules for capitalization.
Now they capitalize even more, making sentences ambigous which weren't
under the old rules. A nice example:
``Der Philosoph fühlt sich im allgemeinen wohl.''
``Der Philosoph fühlt sich im Allgemeinen wohl.''
Completely different meanings, but according to the new rules (which
no sane person obeys anyway), both versions have to be capitalized.
--
Nils Goesche
"Don't ask for whom the <CTRL-G> tolls."
Tim Bradshaw
> No, typesetters have always used a single space, it's just that it's
> only since 1990 (well, OK, 1985 in my case) that large numbers of
> people have been doing their own typesetting using PostScript,
> PageMaker and the like.
This just isn't true. Quite apart from anything else there is no real
concept of a `single space' in a typeset work. The rules as to what
spacing should be used after sentence-ending periods also differ from
place to place & time to time.
My *impression* of good modern practice for justified typography is
that the spacing should be the same as inter-word spacing by default,
but should stretch more if needed to justify the line[1]. The reason for
this is that you really do *not* want large spacing within sentences,
while you can tolerate it between them as there is a natural break
there anyway. Of course another way out is to set unjustified, but
although a number of influential typographers (Gill definitely,
Tschischold I am almost certain) have advocated this, it's not widely
done.
--tim
Footnotes:
[1] however, this may be UK or European practice, a lot of things are
different in the US.
Xah Lee
Boris Schaefer <bo...@uncommon-sense.net> wrote:
> ... but you also said that the reason
> computer users are taught to discard that habit is that it is "not
> suitable for typing on computers, because computer's variable width
Your confusion resulting from focusing on a line in my writing, is an
indirect result of you having zero knowledge of typography.
Because typing machines does not support fractional adjustment of spacing
(kerning), thus it arises a convention of typing two spaces to start a
sentence. When Desktop Publishing becomes popular (credit due to mainly
Apple computer Inc.), many desktop publishing tutorials chide those educated
typing habit of using two spaces, because a computer is not a typewriter,
and can support variable spacing and beyond.
You can verify my claims, by going to a library and search for old tutorial
books on on Typing, or secretary handbooks circa 1990. Also magazines such
as MacWorld (defunct), MacUser (defunct), and other pop desktop publishing
manuals or tutorial that says no to two spaces.
Now go back and read my original paragraph, and you'll see it makes much
sense. For good understanding of typography, read Donald Knuth. He is the
top master of modern typography.
e.g.
Digital Typography by Donald Knuth. (i have not read.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1575860104/ref=ed_oe_p/102-7928624-37
53735
For deeper commentary on typography, try the Ask Naggum column in
comp.lang.lisp. It's sure to be interesting and bound to be colorful too.
Of course, if your curiosity runs deeper than pretty printing (aka: the
time-wasting, morbidly useless, huge Western infatuation of typography), but
also meanings, then you might want to inquire about the design of a
mathematical typesetting system that has mathematical meaning, such as the
software Mathematica, and MathML.
http://www.mathematica.com/
http://www.wolfram.com/products/publicon/
http://www.w3.org/Math/
Note, it does not include TeX.
Btw, is TeX waning? Is it still embraced by math publishing houses as
several years ago? What does scientific publishers use today?
PS never forget encyclopedia:
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,5716,117318+1,00.html
Rob Warnock
+---------------
| > Anybody got any Idea where or when this quaint Practice originated in
| > German?
|
You mean as in <URL:http://www.op.net/docs/RFCs/ien-137>?
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510 rp...@sgi.com
Network Engineering http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc. Phone: 650-933-1673
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. PP-ASEL-IA
Mountain View, CA 94043
Boris Schaefer
| Now go back and read my original paragraph, and you'll see it makes
| much sense.
I am _not_ claiming that your original paragraph doesn't make much
sense. I am claiming that the teachers' reason not to use double
space at the end of sentences when writing on computers doesn't make
much sense.
I know that you don't need to type two spaces at the end of sentences
in TeX (but TeX doesn't care if you do), because it uses some other
algorithm to recognize sentence ends and it will generate bigger
spacing at the end of sentences (unless you use \frenchspacing).
Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the
missing support for the two space convention in systems like Word,
which will typeset[1] two spaces if you type two spaces and will thus
make too big a space between sentences or in systems like (probably
all) HTML-renderers, which will unconditionally contract all spaces to
one and thus make too small a space at sentence ends.
Boris
[1] if you can use that word in conjunction with Word.
I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.
-- Biff Barf
Tim Bradshaw
> Because typing machines does not support fractional adjustment of spacing
> (kerning),
That is not what kerning is. Kerning is the process of reducing the
spacing between certain letters in such a way that their `bounding
boxes'[1] overlap each other. It's used for letter pairs like AV or,
in italics, xfy where unless you do this you get annoyingly large
amounts of whitespace. It's called `kerning' because when done with
real metal type, you need to have parts of the type which stick out
and rest on the shoulder of the adjoining letter. The part that
sticks out is called a kern, hence the name.
Some early machine typesetters -- notably the Linotype machine --
could not do kerning, and you can see the influence of these machines
on the letter forms, as they struggled to cope with this. Many
Linotype fonts have a very strange italic f for instance. The
original Linotype Times Roman is a good example (the `Times New Roman'
which exists on my Windows box has a more normal italic f).
Fully digital typesetting systems obviously don't need to deal with
the mechanical issues, and good ones define kerning in terms of
attributes of pairs of letters -- if you see AV then move the V left
by amount x, basically. And people who don't know the real meaning of
the term then probably interpret `kerning' as `fractional spacing, I
suppose.
Incidentally if you are interested in typography, the best way I know
of to learn about it is to actually set some physical type: it's
*much* more informative than this computer nonsense.
--tim
Footnotes:
[1] this term is used by TeX but I'm trying to mean it in the general
sense of `the smallest rectangle which encloses the letter form'.
Xah Lee
> * Xah Lee wrote:
>> Because typing machines does not support fractional adjustment of spacing
>> (kerning),
Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> wrote:
> That is not what kerning is. Kerning is the process of reducing the
> spacing between certain letters in such a way that their `bounding
> boxes'[1] overlap each other. ...
>
> ...
Thanks Tim and Xah for bringing out the truth.
Xah
x...@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
John Collins
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:10:30 +0100, Jochen Schmidt <j...@dataheaven.de>
> wrote:
>
> > Price somewhere around 300-450$
> >
> >Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
>
> Your argument is seductive. I might have even made it myself, if it
> weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
> So, it appears that while you would be willing to shell out the money,
> very few others are.
For those of us who know and love Lisp, this deal might seem reasonable.
However, if all the "competition" is free (GNU/Linux, Java, JBuilder,
Forte, JBoss, etc. etc.) then you won't get many takers even at 100$.
The problem is that you don't really develop an appreciation for Lisp
until you've banged your head against several other languages for a few
years. Undergrads won't have that level of experience. Nor will many
grad students.
I personally would love to have a good Lisp environment on my Linux box,
but unless I can get paid for using it (not likely around here), I can't
afford to sink much money into it. 300$ I might do, but I doubt most
students would.
John Collins
John Collins
> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> writes:
>
> > If you look at companies that sell a programming language product to
> > make money, their products are often not cheap. Some people have
> > tried to go for the cheap / lots of copies market, like Borland and
> > people like that, but not too many have succeeded: it's a dangerous
> > place to be, since if you become too successful microsoft will come
> > along and produce a `free' equivalent to maintain market share.
>
> Indeed Borland/Inprise itself has repositioned itself so as to sell
> mostly into the Enterprise markets: While you can still get the
> Foundation or Personal editions of their products for little to no
> money, nearly all serious editions are now in the $1000 price range
> and above.
>
> IMHO Borland and others in this area have indeed felt the crunch that
> has been the result of all the free/subsidised offerings out there.
On the other hand, Borland/Inprise and many other sofware outfits offer
"academic versions" of their products for approximately 10% of the full
commercial price. Some, like TogetherSoft and Rational, offer the academic
editions free. These are full versions, not crippled in any way. Just a
different license. They do this for the same reason Digital virtually gave
away hardware to universities in the 70s and 80s (of course most of those
same universities threw away the DEC OS and ran unix - another story). The
thinking was that there would be a large cadre of graduates who would then
convince their employers to buy DEC. It worked until they got themselves
blindsided by Sun.
John Collins
dontb...@ijustfhere.com
>I personally would love to have a good Lisp environment on my Linux box,
>but unless I can get paid for using it (not likely around here), I can't
>afford to sink much money into it. 300$ I might do, but I doubt most
>students would.
As an alternative to Lisp, you can download VisualWorks Smalltalk. Smalltalk
has a lot of the advantages of Lisp, but the vendors have much better
attitudes. VW is completely free for non-commercial use, and is not crippled
in any way. It's easily portable between Linux, Windows, and lots of other
platforms. You can build deliverable applications (as freeware) and they can
run headless if desired (stripped down to a bare program without even a gui
if the gui is not needed.) Smalltalk also has a much bigger community than
Common Lisp, and it's much easier to find high-paying work in Smalltalk.
jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de
I'd say get Xanalys' LispWorks. It's been controlling a real space craft,
running ATM switches, ... Can't be that bad.
Rainer Joswig
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Erik Naggum
| As an alternative to Lisp, you can download VisualWorks Smalltalk.
Where do I find the mature standard for Smalltalk?
#:Erik
--
ALGORITHM: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite
number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.
ALGOREISM: a procedure for solving an electoral problem in a finite
number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.