Security holes add up in second quarter
Sinister Midget
http://tinyurl.com/advwc
More than 422 new Internet security holes were found during the
second quarter, according to data released Monday by the SANS
Institute.
This represents an increase of 10.8 percent compared with the number
found in the first quarter, and a jump of 20 percent compared with
the second quarter of last year, the institute said in its quarterly
report.
If companies and individuals don't take corrective action, the
agency warned, their systems could be used by remote hackers for
identity theft, industrial espionage, and distribution of spam and
pornography.
In order to be included on the quarterly list, the vulnerabilities
must affect a large number of users, the SANS Institute said.
Additionally, they must allow an attacker to take control of a PC
remotely, and they must remain unpatched on a substantial number of
systems. Information sufficient to let people exploit the flaws must
be available on the Net.
Among the flaws are serious vulnerabilities in popular data backup
products used by enterprises, while home users face increased risk
from holes in iTunes and RealPlayer, as well as Internet Explorer.
"We are seeing a trend to exploit not only...Windows, but other
vendor programs that are installed on potentially large number(s) of
systems," said Rohit Dhamankar of TippingPoint, which collaborated
with the SANS Institute for the study.
"These include backup software, management software, licensing
software, etc. Flaws in these programs put critical resources at
risk, as well as having a potential to compromise the entire
enterprise."
Let's take a guess at what platform gets a proportionally larger share
of these vulnerabilities than any of the others.*
* OK, I cheated and followed some links, and further followed some
links linked to the links, so I already know the answer. But I'm not
going to reveal anything for the benefit of the Wintards who always
expect somebody else to do their heavy lifting.
--
I'll never forget the first time I ran Windows. No matter
how hard I try.
Jericho Swarm
I make a good living fixing Windows and repairing its damage.
tab
First it was no problems with linux, and never could be a problem.
Now the numbers grow a little, and security bugs show up.
Didn't DFS say this would happen? Yep, must be a tough life
living in such a narrow view of the world.
In other words, COLA PEOPLE ARE STUPID.
amosf
> Well well, the lying COLA dogs are eating crow.
> First it was no problems with linux, and never could be a problem.
>
> Now the numbers grow a little, and security bugs show up.
>
> Didn't DFS say this would happen? Yep, must be a tough life
> living in such a narrow view of the world.
Gee. At this rate we might even need a virus scanner in a couple of years...
So where is your racist mate DFS anyway? Ran out of steam or is the new
medication keep your multiple personalities in check?
--
-
I use linux. Can anyone give me a good reason to use Windows?
-
Erik Funkenbusch
> Let's take a guess at what platform gets a proportionally larger share
> of these vulnerabilities than any of the others.*
Proportionally larger? What are you imply there? That the numbers are
proportional to their share? That the numbers are larger than they should
be proportionally? Based on what figures?
The vast majority of the software mentioned in the article is third party
software that has nothing to do with the security of the OS itself.
"We are seeing a trend to exploit not only...Windows, but other vendor
programs that are installed on potentially large number(s) of systems,"
The issue here seems to be that any product with a large market share is
being targeted.
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
Now you want to ignore vulnerabilities in the applications on MS-OS, yet
in the past, you have labled vulnerabilities in Sendmail, an app that
runs on MS-Windows, as a "Linux" vulnerability, because it was available
on Linux.
typical.
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
Perfection is a goal to be striven for, not a position to be reached.
Sinister Midget
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 02:20:38 GMT, Sinister Midget wrote:
>
>> Let's take a guess at what platform gets a proportionally larger share
>> of these vulnerabilities than any of the others.*
>
> Proportionally larger? What are you imply there? That the numbers are
> proportional to their share? That the numbers are larger than they should
> be proportionally? Based on what figures?
I'm not implying anything. Winders has the lion's share of users.
Winders should have the lion's share of malware. It just so happens,
though, that Winders has almost all of the malware in existance. The
percentages are far and away larger than their total share of the
desktop says they should have.
> The vast majority of the software mentioned in the article is third party
> software that has nothing to do with the security of the OS itself.
What do those third party programs run on?
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, now that you've seen all of the
evidence it should be eminently clear that the trial was a formality,
required by law, in order to reach the only possible conclusion that
the defendent is indeed guilty."
--
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...
...Oh, wait a minute, he already does.
Erik Funkenbusch
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:29:31 -0500,
> Erik Funkenbusch <er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 02:20:38 GMT, Sinister Midget wrote:
>>
>>> Let's take a guess at what platform gets a proportionally larger share
>>> of these vulnerabilities than any of the others.*
>>
>> Proportionally larger? What are you imply there? That the numbers are
>> proportional to their share? That the numbers are larger than they should
>> be proportionally? Based on what figures?
>>
>> The vast majority of the software mentioned in the article is third party
>> software that has nothing to do with the security of the OS itself.
>>
>> "We are seeing a trend to exploit not only...Windows, but other vendor
>> programs that are installed on potentially large number(s) of systems,"
>>
>> The issue here seems to be that any product with a large market share is
>> being targeted.
>
> Now you want to ignore vulnerabilities in the applications on MS-OS, yet
> in the past, you have labled vulnerabilities in Sendmail, an app that
> runs on MS-Windows, as a "Linux" vulnerability, because it was available
> on Linux.
The key issue is the word "third party". Once Red Hat or any other Linux
vendor ships said software in their distro, and support it, it's no longer
third party.
> typical.
Your response sure is.
Peter Köhlmann
Oh yes, Erik, that is a truly easy way out for you.
Tell us, are you always that dishonest or are you that way just 99.999% of
the time?
>> typical.
>
> Your response sure is.
Well, yours certainly was.
So you really want to tell us that the inclusion of X11 makes it a redhat
X11. Or a SuSE X11. Or a Debian X11
The inclusion of KDE makes it a Suse KDE, naturally. It no longer is
mainained by KDE.org.
You are truy an idiot
--
Designed for Windows. No user serviceable parts inside. By design
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 01:36:52 -0500,
So the answer is yes, you want to compare MS-Windows and a couple of
apps, with all Linux distros, and all apps that may ship with one...
Figures.
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
I worry about dying before I get even.
Erik Funkenbusch
Yes. This is a direct result of the "kitchen sink" mentality of distro's.
I think it's a security problem to ship so much crap software, and most
certainly it raises your liability level (while perhaps not legal
liability, certain moral liability).
The minute you start adding your own patches and providing your own
support, you inherit responsibility for it. Don't like that? Then perhaps
Linux distro's shouldn't ship with so much crap.
Erik Funkenbusch
Not just inclusion, but inclusion *AND* Support. Many distro's make their
own patches to these packages, package them in their own formats, with
their own configurations and build options. They take responsibility for
that software by doing all that.
> You are truy an idiot
You're really the "boy who called idiot" aren't you? You use this so much
that it no longer holds any value (not that it had much to begin with).
malloc
> Not just inclusion, but inclusion *AND* Support. Many distro's make
> their own patches to these packages, package them in their own
> formats, with their own configurations and build options. They take
> responsibility for that software by doing all that.
The distro fragmentation fud issue ...
malloc
> Yes. This is a direct result of the "kitchen sink" mentality of
> distro's. I think it's a security problem to ship so much crap
> software, and most certainly it raises your liability level (while
> perhaps not legal liability, certain moral liability).
> The minute you start adding your own patches and providing your own
> support, you inherit responsibility for it. Don't like that? Then
> perhaps Linux distro's shouldn't ship with so much crap.
a. A typical Linux distro is just so much kitchen sink crap.
b. Linux distros raise security issues.
c. Linux distros are immoral :)
d. Linux distros are just so much crap.
I would have thought that it is *you* who has the "kitchen sink"
mentality since Windows is everthing to everyman.
Erik Funkenbusch
> on July 27 10:48:11 -0500 Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
>> Yes. This is a direct result of the "kitchen sink" mentality of
>> distro's. I think it's a security problem to ship so much crap
>> software, and most certainly it raises your liability level (while
>> perhaps not legal liability, certain moral liability).
>
>> The minute you start adding your own patches and providing your own
>> support, you inherit responsibility for it. Don't like that? Then
>> perhaps Linux distro's shouldn't ship with so much crap.
>
> a. A typical Linux distro is just so much kitchen sink crap.
> b. Linux distros raise security issues.
> c. Linux distros are immoral :)
> d. Linux distros are just so much crap.
Even you must admit there's a LOT of crap software that comes in a typical
distro. A lot of good software too, but mostly just a lot of software..
> I would have thought that it is *you* who has the "kitchen sink"
> mentality since Windows is everthing to everyman.
I completely agree that Windows ships with too much stuff. I wish it
didn't, but Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes
with their OS.
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 10:48:09 -0500,
Just want to make sure I have this straight, I remember the whol e"half
dozen new remote root exploits" fiasco of yours.
So you want to compare MS-Windows (with just the OS, and a handful of
apps) with *all* the distros of Linux, and *all* the apps, *including
those that are highly unlikely to be installed concurrently (like
multiple smtp servers).
Got it.
Do you also want to count flaws in say, sendmail, multiple times for
each distro that ships with it?
> The minute you start adding your own patches and providing your own
> support, you inherit responsibility for it. Don't like that? Then perhaps
> Linux distro's shouldn't ship with so much crap.
you no likey, you no gotta usey!
Stick to the crap MS puts out. Frankly, you're welcome to it.
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
"$HOME is where your dotfiles are"
Ku Karlovsky
<er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote in message
<<ntos1iszfqqj$.d...@funkenbusch.com>>:
> Even you must admit there's a LOT of crap software that comes in a typical
> distro.
There's an astounding amount of crap pre-installed, crap like Outlook
Express, Internet Explorer, and "Media" Player. It's even a
complement to call this stuff crap. Why does Microsoft do it? Are
their customers complete idiots or something?
> Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes
> with their OS.
In every version of every bit of software they've ever released, they
state explicitly in their EULA (End User Luser Agreement) that they
take no responsibility for anything, anytime, anywhere, for any
reason.
When did they change their policies? Please include specifics in your
forthcoming proof.
DFS
> On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:08:20 -0500, Erik Funkenbusch
> <er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote in message
> <<ntos1iszfqqj$.d...@funkenbusch.com>>:
>
>> Even you must admit there's a LOT of crap software that comes in a
>> typical distro.
>
> There's an astounding amount of crap pre-installed, crap like Outlook
> Express, Internet Explorer, and "Media" Player. It's even a
> complement to call this stuff crap. Why does Microsoft do it? Are
> their customers complete idiots or something?
Windows customers took a look at
http://packages.debian.org/stable/allpackages and ran screaming.
>> Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes
>> with their OS.
>
> In every version of every bit of software they've ever released, they
> state explicitly in their EULA (End User Luser Agreement) that they
> take no responsibility for anything, anytime, anywhere, for any
> reason.
>
> When did they change their policies? Please include specifics in your
> forthcoming proof.
As far as I know, they offer a 90-day money back guarantee on everything
they sell. That's a better deal than The Devil gave you when you sold your
soul and began using Linux/OSS.
malloc
> On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:08:20 -0500, Erik Funkenbusch
> <er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote in message
> <<ntos1iszfqqj$.d...@funkenbusch.com>>:
>> Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes with
>> their OS.
`The license rights granted under this EULA are limited to the first
thirty (30) days after you first install the Product'
`the entire liability of Microsoft .. shall be limited to .. U.S.$5.00.'
> In every version of every bit of software they've ever released, they
> state explicitly in their EULA (End User Luser Agreement) that they
> take no responsibility for anything, anytime, anywhere, for any
> reason.
> When did they change their policies? Please include specifics in
> your forthcoming proof.
amosf
> Ku Karlovsky wrote:
>> On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:08:20 -0500, Erik Funkenbusch
>> <er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote in message
>> <<ntos1iszfqqj$.d...@funkenbusch.com>>:
>>
>>> Even you must admit there's a LOT of crap software that comes in a
>>> typical distro.
>>
>> There's an astounding amount of crap pre-installed, crap like Outlook
>> Express, Internet Explorer, and "Media" Player. It's even a
>> complement to call this stuff crap. Why does Microsoft do it? Are
>> their customers complete idiots or something?
>
> Windows customers took a look at
> http://packages.debian.org/stable/allpackages and ran screaming.
Troll distro shuffle.
>>> Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes
>>> with their OS.
>>
>> In every version of every bit of software they've ever released, they
>> state explicitly in their EULA (End User Luser Agreement) that they
>> take no responsibility for anything, anytime, anywhere, for any
>> reason.
>>
>> When did they change their policies? Please include specifics in your
>> forthcoming proof.
>
> As far as I know, they offer a 90-day money back guarantee on everything
> they sell. That's a better deal than The Devil gave you when you sold
> your soul and began using Linux/OSS.
Nobody makes any guarantee on your data, and that's what matters... No deal
with the devil here for me as I can dump my OS or apps and go to another
and still own the data. With MS closed formats, they have a mortgage on
your data...
DFS
> DFS wrote something like:
>> As far as I know, they offer a 90-day money back guarantee on
>> everything they sell. That's a better deal than The Devil gave you
>> when you sold your soul and began using Linux/OSS.
>
> Nobody makes any guarantee on your data, and that's what matters...
> No deal with the devil here for me as I can dump my OS or apps and go
> to another and still own the data. With MS closed formats, they have
> a mortgage on your data...
File | Save As | Text
no mortgage payment...
amosf
So easy. Just go back through every document and spreadsheet and db you
have, lose all formatting...
Data 'compatibily' and the closed format is MS's biggest asset. It's one of
the main things that keep the masses in line. They have you by the balls...
Feel free to start saving as 'text' :)
Erik Funkenbusch
>> Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes
>> with their OS.
>
> In every version of every bit of software they've ever released, they
> state explicitly in their EULA (End User Luser Agreement) that they
> take no responsibility for anything, anytime, anywhere, for any
> reason.
>
> When did they change their policies? Please include specifics in your
> forthcoming proof.
Oh yeah, that's why MS never issues security patches or service packs to
fix problems that are discovered. I mean, after all, they have no
responsibility, right? Why should they?
Linønut
Because it is a nice back door.
--
Tux rox!
DFS
> DFS wrote something like:
>
>> amosf wrote:
>>> DFS wrote something like:
>>
>>
>>>> As far as I know, they offer a 90-day money back guarantee on
>>>> everything they sell. That's a better deal than The Devil gave you
>>>> when you sold your soul and began using Linux/OSS.
>>>
>>> Nobody makes any guarantee on your data, and that's what matters...
>>> No deal with the devil here for me as I can dump my OS or apps and
>>> go to another and still own the data. With MS closed formats, they
>>> have a mortgage on your data...
>>
>> File | Save As | Text
>>
>> no mortgage payment...
>
> So easy. Just go back through every document and spreadsheet and db
> you have, lose all formatting...
It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps when you
save them as text files.
> Data 'compatibily' and the closed format is MS's biggest asset. It's
> one of the main things that keep the masses in line. They have you by
> the balls...
No more so than if you were using open source apps all along.
Sinister Midget
Shame brought on by publicity of problems they aren't fixing. And/or
shame they know will be brought soon unless they start moving on trying
to hide* the problem.
Are you naive, do you like to argue for argument sake, are you drunk or
have you some vested interest in the furtherance of such amateurish
programming?
I see you gave some specificity, like he asked. Here's some as your
reward:
http://proprietary.clendons.co.nz/licenses/eula/windowsxpprofessional-eula.htm
12. .....The Limited Warranty that appears above is the only express
warranty made to you and is provided in lieu of any other express
warranties (if any) created by any documentation, packaging, or
other communications. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the
maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its
suppliers provide the Product and support services (if any) AS IS
AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and
conditions, either express, implied or statutory, including, but
not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or
conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose,
of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of
responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses,
and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Product, and the
provision of or failure to provide support or other services,
information, software, and related content through the Product or
otherwise arising out of the use of the Product. ALSO, THERE IS NO
WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION,
CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO
THE PRODUCT.
13. .....TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO
EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL,
INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS OR
CONFIDENTIAL OR OTHER INFORMATION, FOR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, FOR
PERSONAL INJURY, FOR LOSS OF PRIVACY, FOR FAILURE TO MEET ANY DUTY
INCLUDING OF GOOD FAITH OR OF REASONABLE CARE, FOR NEGLIGENCE, AND
FOR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY OR OTHER LOSS WHATSOEVER) ARISING OUT OF OR
IN ANY WAY RELATED TO THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRODUCT,
THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT OR OTHER SERVICES,
INFORMATON, SOFTWARE, AND RELATED CONTENT THROUGH THE PRODUCT OR
OTHERWISE ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THE PRODUCT, OR OTHERWISE UNDER
OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY PROVISION OF THIS EULA, EVEN IN THE EVENT
OF THE FAULT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH
OF CONTRACT OR BREACH OF WARRANTY OF MICROSOFT OR ANY SUPPLIER, AND
EVEN IF MICROSOFT OR ANY SUPPLIER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
15. .....Notwithstanding any damages that you might incur for any
reason whatsoever (including, without limitation, all damages
referenced above and all direct or general damages), the entire
liability of Microsoft and any of its suppliers under any provision
of this EULA and your exclusive remedy for all of the foregoing
(except for any remedy of repair or replacement elected by
Microsoft with respect to any breach of the Limited Warranty) shall
be limited to the greater of the amount actually paid by you for
the Product or U.S.$5.00. The foregoing limitations, exclusions
and disclaimers (including Sections 11, 12 and 13 above) shall
apply to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, even if
any remedy fails its essential purpose.
As we can see, they support and warrant everything they do, right up to
and including the purchase price or 5 bucks, and only excepting
anything allowed in the remainder of the EULA that allows them the
wiggle room to avoid any responsibility.
* It's not like they really /fix/ anything. And if they accidentally
do, they'll break it later on so they can fix it some more to keep the
repair count high.
--
Bill Gates: "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to
steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow
figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
Ku Karlovsky
<er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote in message
<<dhvn9t8s...@funkenbusch.com>>:
> On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 21:06:57 -0600, Ku Karlovsky wrote:
>
> >> Microsoft does take responsibility for everything that comes
> >> with their OS.
> >
> > In every version of every bit of software they've ever released, they
> > state explicitly in their EULA (End User Luser Agreement) that they
> > take no responsibility for anything, anytime, anywhere, for any
> > reason.
> >
> > When did they change their policies? Please include specifics in your
> > forthcoming proof.
>
> Oh yeah, that's why MS never issues security patches or service packs to
> fix problems that are discovered.
My mistake. I didn't realize that when you said "take responsibility"
you meant "fix occasionally, slowly, and tardily".
> I mean, after all, they have no responsibility, right? Why should they?
That's a good question with a simple answer. Producing a reliable and
reasonably secure product would reduce the profit margin, and that's
why they don't bother. Microsoft's customers expect deficient
products and Microsoft delivers.
Edwards
> amosf wrote:
>> DFS wrote something like:
>>
>>> amosf wrote:
>>>> DFS wrote something like:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> As far as I know, they offer a 90-day money back guarantee on
>>>>> everything they sell. That's a better deal than The Devil gave you
>>>>> when you sold your soul and began using Linux/OSS.
>>>>
>>>> Nobody makes any guarantee on your data, and that's what matters...
>>>> No deal with the devil here for me as I can dump my OS or apps and
>>>> go to another and still own the data. With MS closed formats, they
>>>> have a mortgage on your data...
>>>
>>> File | Save As | Text
>>>
>>> no mortgage payment...
>>
>> So easy. Just go back through every document and spreadsheet and db
>> you have, lose all formatting...
>
> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps when you
> save them as text files.
<cough> .tex <cough>
--
Cheers,
Darrin
Linønut
Or even Open Office, if you save it in its native format, and then unzip
that format.
Frankly, having been around the whole block as far as document
processing goes (started with DEC's RUNOFF application wayyyy too many
years ago, then used a text-based system called DPS on a DEC TOPS-10
system to do my dissertation [1], then learned WordStar on a PC, then
WordPerfect for Windows, and finally the worst product of all, Microsoft
Word), I really think the TeX way is best.
1. Edit your document like it is code using fast and elegant programmer's
editors instead of slow-to-load, slow to update word "processors"
that are so insistent on stamping their "correct" formatting on
your documents that, even when you turn off every auto-formatting
feature you can find in their nest of menus and tabbed dialogs
with buttons that bring up even more dialogs, the word processor
will still force you to discover the proper ritual for getting
your text to look the way you want it, so that it takes two
minutes instead of a couple of seconds.
2. Periodically pipe it through a processor to see what it would look
like, doing so on a system in which the appearance is NOT
DEPENDENT on what model of printer you are using.
3. Being able to cut-and-paste text in your document without having
the formatting go along for the ride.
4. Generating tables, indexes, and other materials that can be
accessed by external tools.
I have a question: Why in Gate's name did Rational decide to base their
requirements-management system on a proprietary word processor that is not
only buggy in all versions, but which changes or tweaks internal formats
and DLLs not only between versions, but between Windows updates????????
What the HELL were they thinking?
I am an angry Linųnut. YMMV.
Linųnut.
[1] This is something I really miss about today's rather impoverished
computing world: fast line printers that can print off a couple
hundred pages (in mixed case, and formatted) in about a minute.
--
Tux rox!
DFS
<choke>app lock-in</choke>
DFS
>
> Linřnut.
>
> [1] This is something I really miss about today's rather impoverished
> computing world: fast line printers that can print off a couple
> hundred pages (in mixed case, and formatted) in about a minute.
Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining for the
old days.
The Ghost In The Machine
<nospam@dfs_.com>
wrote
on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 11:44:28 -0400
<u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>:
Exactly, whereas with Microsoft Word one can edit the document with
so many other applications, such as Microsoft WordPad.
At least with TeX one can edit it with vi, emacs, jed, joe, kate,
kedit, nano, pico, gedit, xedit, ...
One could even use <smirk> Notepad </smirk>.
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.
Edwards
No, it's human readable.
google latex2doc latex2rtf latex2html, in any case.
--
Cheers,
Darrin
Edwards
>>
>> Linønut.
>>
>> [1] This is something I really miss about today's rather impoverished
>> computing world: fast line printers that can print off a couple
>> hundred pages (in mixed case, and formatted) in about a minute.
>
> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>
> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining
> for the old days.
http://www.lyx.org, if so desired.
--
Cheers,
Darrin
DFS
> In article <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>> Edwards wrote:
>>> In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>
>>>> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>> when you save them as text files.
>>>
>>> <cough> .tex <cough>
>>
>> <choke>app lock-in</choke>
>
> No, it's human readable.
But basically human-unusable. Like an OpenOffice document is away from
OpenOffice.
DFS
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, DFS
> <nospam@dfs_.com>
> wrote
> on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 11:44:28 -0400
> <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>:
>> Edwards wrote:
>>> In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>
>>>> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>> when you save them as text files.
>>>
>>> <cough> .tex <cough>
>>
>> <choke>app lock-in</choke>
>>
>
> Exactly, whereas with Microsoft Word one can edit the document with
> so many other applications, such as Microsoft WordPad.
True.
> At least with TeX one can edit it with vi, emacs, jed, joe, kate,
> kedit, nano, pico, gedit, xedit, ...
But... why?
> One could even use <smirk> Notepad </smirk>.
Careful with the <smirk>. Your face might get frozen like that, and you'll
have a hard time getting past the first interview.
Lee Sau Dan
Linųnut> Frankly, having been around the whole block as far as
Linųnut> document processing goes (started with DEC's RUNOFF
Linųnut> application wayyyy too many years ago, then used a
Linųnut> text-based system called DPS on a DEC TOPS-10 system to
Linųnut> do my dissertation [1], then learned WordStar on a PC,
Linųnut> then WordPerfect for Windows, and finally the worst
Linųnut> product of all, Microsoft Word), I really think the TeX
Linųnut> way is best.
...
5. You've forgotten macros. Things like
\newcommand\clientname{Mr. XYZ}
are so useful for reusability.
And you can start typing the document even before you're
sure of the client's name. After knowing the client's
name, you just need to change that macro definition. No
need to go through every place where you used a placehold
and replace it. Such "deferred decision" is not so easy to
do with other document preparation systems.
--
Lee Sau Dan
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Lee Sau Dan
>> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>>
>> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit
>> pining for the old days.
Edwards> http://www.lyx.org, if so desired.
Or TeXmacs.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
Lee Sau Dan
DFS> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
WYSIWYG is useless without WYWIWYS (what you WANT is what you SEE).
And too bad that most "word processors" do not achieve WYWIWYS. So,
what's the point of WYSIWYG, then? I still can get what i *WANT*.
Lee Sau Dan
The> Exactly, whereas with Microsoft Word one can edit the
The> document with so many other applications, such as Microsoft
The> WordPad.
The> At least with TeX one can edit it with vi, emacs, jed, joe,
The> kate, kedit, nano, pico, gedit, xedit, ...
And you've forgotten to list the set of unix text utilities, that can
be and often are used for GENERATING TeX document fragments: sed, awk,
grep, cut, paste, perl. The fact that you can generate TeX fragments
(or even complete documents) from your own program, and the fact that
you can learn to write programs, is unbeatable.
Furthermore, since TeX source files are text files, you can use other
*orthogonal* tools that can process text files: CVS, ispell, etc. How
can I do version control with Word? (Forget about that "Version
Control" feature within Word. It's a joke when compared to RCS.)
The> One could even use <smirk> Notepad </smirk>.
Or 'ex'. :)
--
Lee Sau Dan
WS
> Edwards wrote:
>
>>In article <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>
>>>Edwards wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>
>>>>>It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>>>when you save them as text files.
>>>>
>>>><cough> .tex <cough>
>>>
>>><choke>app lock-in</choke>
>>
>>No, it's human readable.>
>
> But basically human-unusable. Like an OpenOffice document is away from
> OpenOffice.
>
>>google latex2doc latex2rtf latex2html, in any case.
>
Why is a document created with OO human unusable?
It's a bit more involded that creating TEX files in an editor, but it's
an open document format, so I could edit it "manually" by unzipping it,
and editing the XML myself or do it in another opendocument compatible
word processor.
Of course, if the GOAL was to create a nicely formatted document that
was USEABLE (i.e. a final copy to be sent elsewhere) then I'd export it
as a PDF file.
Y'know, you remind me of a certain Simon Cooke, always trying to get in
the last word, unless, of course, you are, and only under a different
name. ;-)
Regards,
WS
--
change to leews to mail
Linønut
> In article <ycsGe.34901$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
Frankly, my dear DFS, I found writing large documents using the old
text-based document processing systems to be much much easier and faster
than trying to wrestle with that piece of crap, MS Word.
MS Word may enhance your productivity if you are writing a memo, a short
document, or a recipe, but, for large technical documents, MS Word all
but kills productivity.
Why should I pretend to like a tool that doesn't work well for my job,
just because they force us to use it?
You would have me work with a flimsy Swiss Army knife instead of a real
box of Craftsman tools?
> http://www.lyx.org, if so desired.
Of course, I know about that one already. I tried it, but I'll never be
able to convince the client to switch <grin>.
--
Tux rox!
DFS
> Edwards poked his little head through the XP firewall and said:
>
>> In article <ycsGe.34901$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>> Linřnut wrote:
>>>> Edwards poked his little head through the XP firewall and said:
>>>
>>> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>>>
>>> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining
>>> for the old days.
>
> Frankly, my dear DFS, I found writing large documents using the old
> text-based document processing systems to be much much easier and
> faster than trying to wrestle with that piece of crap, MS Word.
OK. The old way may have been faster, but the new way is better. The new
way lets you communicate and format and present information in ways that
make it easier to read and understand. (at least it's supposed to better.)
> MS Word may enhance your productivity if you are writing a memo, a
> short document, or a recipe, but, for large technical documents, MS
> Word all but kills productivity.
What kind of large, technical document? What problems with Word are hurting
your productivity? Exactly which bugs and features are bugging you?
> Why should I pretend to like a tool that doesn't work well for my job,
> just because they force us to use it?
You shouldn't. But calling MS Word a piece of crap when it's actually the
best word processing tool available is just ... very cola of you.
> You would have me work with a flimsy Swiss Army knife instead of a
> real box of Craftsman tools?
One of the TeX programs is the Craftsman tool?
>> http://www.lyx.org, if so desired.
>
> Of course, I know about that one already. I tried it, but I'll never
> be able to convince the client to switch <grin>.
Why not?
DFS
> DFS wrote:
>> Edwards wrote:
>>
>>> In article <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>
>>>> Edwards wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>>>> when you save them as text files.
>>>>>
>>>>> <cough> .tex <cough>
>>>>
>>>> <choke>app lock-in</choke>
>>>
>>> No, it's human readable.>
> >
>> But basically human-unusable. Like an OpenOffice document is away
>> from OpenOffice.
>>
>>> google latex2doc latex2rtf latex2html, in any case.
>>
>
> Why is a document created with OO human unusable?
I'll show you (and by human-unusable I mean basically unusable without the
original app or some other kind of XML editor).
Below is the unzipped contents of an OpenOffice Calc file. There are
exactly 3 cells completed. No formatting, no bolding, underlining, etc. No
charts. It's as simple as can be.
Can you find the cell contents?
############################################################
the style.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-styles PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD
OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-styles
xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office"
xmlns:style="http://openoffice.org/2000/style"
xmlns:text="http://openoffice.org/2000/text"
xmlns:table="http://openoffice.org/2000/table"
xmlns:draw="http://openoffice.org/2000/drawing"
xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:number="http://openoffice.org/2000/datastyle"
xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
xmlns:chart="http://openoffice.org/2000/chart"
xmlns:dr3d="http://openoffice.org/2000/dr3d"
xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"
xmlns:form="http://openoffice.org/2000/form"
xmlns:script="http://openoffice.org/2000/script"
office:version="1.0"><office:font-decls><style:font-decl
style:name="Bitstream Vera Sans1" fo:font-family="'Bitstream Vera
Sans'" style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-decl
style:name="Lucidasans" fo:font-family="Lucidasans"
style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-decl style:name="Bitstream Vera
Sans" fo:font-family="'Bitstream Vera Sans'"
style:font-family-generic="swiss"
style:font-pitch="variable"/></office:font-decls><office:styles><style:defau
lt-style style:family="table-cell"><style:properties
style:decimal-places="2" style:font-name="Bitstream Vera Sans"
fo:language="en" fo:country="US" style:font-name-asian="Bitstream Vera
Sans1" style:language-asian="none" style:country-asian="none"
style:font-name-complex="Lucidasans" style:language-complex="none"
style:country-complex="none"
style:tab-stop-distance="0.5inch"/></style:default-style><number:number-styl
e style:name="N0" style:family="data-style"><number:number
number:min-integer-digits="1"/></number:number-style><number:currency-style
style:name="N104P0" style:family="data-style"
style:volatile="true"><number:currency-symbol number:language="en"
number:country="US">$</number:currency-symbol><number:number
number:decimal-places="2" number:min-integer-digits="1"
number:grouping="true"/></number:currency-style><number:currency-style
style:name="N104" style:family="data-style"><style:properties
fo:color="#ff0000"/><number:text>-</number:text><number:currency-symbol
number:language="en"
number:country="US">$</number:currency-symbol><number:number
number:decimal-places="2" number:min-integer-digits="1"
number:grouping="true"/><style:map style:condition="value()>=0"
style:apply-style-name="N104P0"/></number:currency-style><style:style
style:name="Default" style:family="table-cell"/><style:style
style:name="Result" style:family="table-cell"
style:parent-style-name="Default"><style:properties fo:font-style="italic"
style:text-underline="single" style:text-underline-color="font-color"
fo:font-weight="bold"/></style:style><style:style style:name="Result2"
style:family="table-cell" style:parent-style-name="Result"
style:data-style-name="N104"/><style:style style:name="Heading"
style:family="table-cell"
style:parent-style-name="Default"><style:properties fo:text-align="center"
style:text-align-source="fix" fo:font-size="16pt" fo:font-style="italic"
fo:font-weight="bold"/></style:style><style:style style:name="Heading1"
style:family="table-cell"
style:parent-style-name="Heading"><style:properties fo:direction="ltr"
style:rotation-angle="90"/></style:style></office:styles><office:automatic-s
tyles><style:page-master style:name="pm1"><style:properties
style:writing-mode="lr-tb"/><style:header-style><style:properties
fo:min-height="0.2957inch" fo:margin-left="0inch" fo:margin-right="0inch"
fo:margin-bottom="0.0984inch"/></style:header-style><style:footer-style><sty
le:properties fo:min-height="0.2957inch" fo:margin-left="0inch"
fo:margin-right="0inch"
fo:margin-top="0.0984inch"/></style:footer-style></style:page-master><style:
page-master style:name="pm2"><style:properties
style:writing-mode="lr-tb"/><style:header-style><style:properties
fo:min-height="0.2957inch" fo:margin-left="0inch" fo:margin-right="0inch"
fo:margin-bottom="0.0984inch" fo:border="0.0346inch solid #000000"
fo:padding="0.0071inch"
fo:background-color="#c0c0c0"><style:background-image/></style:properties></
style:header-style><style:footer-style><style:properties
fo:min-height="0.2957inch" fo:margin-left="0inch" fo:margin-right="0inch"
fo:margin-top="0.0984inch" fo:border="0.0346inch solid #000000"
fo:padding="0.0071inch"
fo:background-color="#c0c0c0"><style:background-image/></style:properties></
style:footer-style></style:page-master></office:automatic-styles><office:mas
ter-styles><style:master-page style:name="Default"
style:page-master-name="pm1"><style:header><text:p><text:sheet-name>???</tex
t:sheet-name></text:p></style:header><style:header-left
style:display="false"/><style:footer><text:p>Page
<text:page-number>1</text:page-number></text:p></style:footer><style:footer-
left style:display="false"/></style:master-page><style:master-page
style:name="Report"
style:page-master-name="pm2"><style:header><style:region-left><text:p><text:
sheet-name>???</text:sheet-name>
(<text:title>???</text:title>)</text:p></style:region-left><style:region-rig
ht><text:p><text:date style:data-style-name="N2"
text:date-value="2004-06-30">06/30/2004</text:date>,
<text:time>00:16:20</text:time></text:p></style:region-right></style:header>
<style:header-left style:display="false"/><style:footer><text:p>Page
<text:page-number>1</text:page-number> /
<text:page-count>99</text:page-count></text:p></style:footer><style:footer-l
eft
style:display="false"/></style:master-page></office:master-styles></office:d
ocument-styles>
the contents.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-content PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD
OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-content
xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office"
xmlns:style="http://openoffice.org/2000/style"
xmlns:text="http://openoffice.org/2000/text"
xmlns:table="http://openoffice.org/2000/table"
xmlns:draw="http://openoffice.org/2000/drawing"
xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:number="http://openoffice.org/2000/datastyle"
xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
xmlns:chart="http://openoffice.org/2000/chart"
xmlns:dr3d="http://openoffice.org/2000/dr3d"
xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"
xmlns:form="http://openoffice.org/2000/form"
xmlns:script="http://openoffice.org/2000/script" office:class="spreadsheet"
office:version="1.0"><office:script/><office:font-decls><style:font-decl
style:name="Bitstream Vera Sans1" fo:font-family="'Bitstream Vera
Sans'" style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-decl
style:name="Lucidasans" fo:font-family="Lucidasans"
style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-decl style:name="Bitstream Vera
Sans" fo:font-family="'Bitstream Vera Sans'"
style:font-family-generic="swiss"
style:font-pitch="variable"/></office:font-decls><office:automatic-styles><s
tyle:style style:name="co1" style:family="table-column"><style:properties
fo:break-before="auto"
style:column-width="0.8925inch"/></style:style><style:style style:name="ro1"
style:family="table-row"><style:properties style:row-height="0.1681inch"
fo:break-before="auto"
style:use-optimal-row-height="true"/></style:style><style:style
style:name="ta1" style:family="table"
style:master-page-name="Default"><style:properties
table:display="true"/></style:style></office:automatic-styles><office:body><
table:table table:name="Sheet1" table:style-name="ta1"><table:table-column
table:style-name="co1"
table:default-cell-style-name="Default"/><table:table-row
table:style-name="ro1"><table:table-cell table:value-type="float"
table:value="1000"><text:p>1000</text:p></table:table-cell></table:table-row
> <table:table-row table:style-name="ro1"><table:table-cell
table:value-type="float"
table:value="2000"><text:p>2000</text:p></table:table-cell></table:table-row
> <table:table-row table:style-name="ro1"><table:table-cell
table:formula="=SUM([.A1:.A2])" table:value-type="float"
table:value="3000"><text:p>3000</text:p></table:table-cell></table:table-row
> </table:table><table:table table:name="Sheet2"
table:style-name="ta1"><table:table-column table:style-name="co1"
table:default-cell-style-name="Default"/><table:table-row
table:style-name="ro1"><table:table-cell/></table:table-row></table:table><t
able:table table:name="Sheet3" table:style-name="ta1"><table:table-column
table:style-name="co1"
table:default-cell-style-name="Default"/><table:table-row
table:style-name="ro1"><table:table-cell/></table:table-row></table:table></
office:body></office:document-content>
And the settings.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-settings PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD
OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-settings
xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:config="http://openoffice.org/2001/config"
office:version="1.0"><office:settings><config:config-item-set
config:name="view-settings"><config:config-item config:name="VisibleAreaTop"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="VisibleAreaLeft"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="VisibleAreaWidth"
config:type="int">2258</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="VisibleAreaHeight"
config:type="int">1275</config:config-item><config:config-item-map-indexed
config:name="Views"><config:config-item-map-entry><config:config-item
config:name="ViewId"
config:type="string">View1</config:config-item><config:config-item-map-named
config:name="Tables"><config:config-item-map-entry
config:name="Sheet1"><config:config-item config:name="CursorPositionX"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="CursorPositionY"
config:type="int">3</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HorizontalSplitMode"
config:type="short">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="VerticalSplitMode"
config:type="short">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HorizontalSplitPosition"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="VerticalSplitPosition"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ActiveSplitRange"
config:type="short">2</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="PositionLeft"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="PositionRight"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="PositionTop"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="PositionBottom"
config:type="int">0</config:config-item></config:config-item-map-entry></con
fig:config-item-map-named><config:config-item config:name="ActiveTable"
config:type="string">Sheet1</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HorizontalScrollbarWidth"
config:type="int">270</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ZoomType"
config:type="short">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ZoomValue"
config:type="int">100</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="PageViewZoomValue"
config:type="int">60</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowPageBreakPreview"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowZeroValues"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowNotes"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowGrid"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="GridColor"
config:type="long">12632256</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowPageBreaks"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HasColumnRowHeaders"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HasSheetTabs"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsOutlineSymbolsSet"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsSnapToRaster"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterIsVisible"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterResolutionX"
config:type="int">1270</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterResolutionY"
config:type="int">1270</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterSubdivisionX"
config:type="int">1</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterSubdivisionY"
config:type="int">1</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsRasterAxisSynchronized"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item></config:config-item-map-entr
y></config:config-item-map-indexed></config:config-item-set><config:config-i
tem-set config:name="configuration-settings"><config:config-item
config:name="ShowZeroValues"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowNotes"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowGrid"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="GridColor"
config:type="long">12632256</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="ShowPageBreaks"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="LinkUpdateMode"
config:type="short">3</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HasColumnRowHeaders"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="HasSheetTabs"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsOutlineSymbolsSet"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsSnapToRaster"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterIsVisible"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterResolutionX"
config:type="int">1270</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterResolutionY"
config:type="int">1270</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterSubdivisionX"
config:type="int">1</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="RasterSubdivisionY"
config:type="int">1</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsRasterAxisSynchronized"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="AutoCalculate"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="PrinterName" config:type="string">Generic
Printer</config:config-item><config:config-item config:name="PrinterSetup"
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWAAMAAAIAAAAA//8BAAhSAAAEdAAASm9iRGF0YSAxCnByaW50ZXI9R2VuZ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</config:config-item><config:
config-item config:name="ApplyUserData"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="CharacterCompressionType"
config:type="short">0</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="IsKernAsianPunctuation"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="SaveVersionOnClose"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="UpdateFromTemplate"
config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item><config:config-item
config:name="AllowPrintJobCancel"
config:type="boolean">true</config:config-item></config:config-item-set></of
fice:settings></office:document-settings>
And the mimetype file
application/vnd.sun.xml.calc
And the meta.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-meta PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument
1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-meta
xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:meta="http://openoffice.org/2000/meta"
office:version="1.0"><office:meta><meta:generator>OpenOffice.org 1.1.1
(Linux)</meta:generator><!--645m35(Build:8762)--><meta:creation-date>2004-06
-30T00:13:50</meta:creation-date><dc:date>2004-06-30T00:16:19</dc:date><dc:l
anguage>en-US</dc:language><meta:editing-cycles>3</meta:editing-cycles><meta
> editing-duration>PT2M30S</meta:editing-duration><meta:user-defined
meta:name="Info 1"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info
2"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 3"/><meta:user-defined
meta:name="Info 4"/><meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="3"
meta:cell-count="3"/></office:meta></office:document-meta>
And the manifest.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE manifest:manifest PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD Manifest 1.0//EN"
"Manifest.dtd">
<manifest:manifest xmlns:manifest="http://openoffice.org/2001/manifest">
<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="application/vnd.sun.xml.calc"
manifest:full-path="/"/>
<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type=""
manifest:full-path="Pictures/"/>
<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="text/xml"
manifest:full-path="content.xml"/>
<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="text/xml"
manifest:full-path="styles.xml"/>
<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="text/xml"
manifest:full-path="meta.xml"/>
<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="text/xml"
manifest:full-path="settings.xml"/>
</manifest:manifest>
############################################################
Did you find the data? I hope so. Now take a more realistic example: an
accounting sheet with quarterly results for 5 years for 8 product lines,
each with their own tab, and try to reconstruct it without OO. Make sure
and clear your calendar for a number of hours.
As I said before... <choke>app lock-in</choke>
> It's a bit more involded that creating TEX files in an editor,
A "bit more involved"? That's putting it mildly. It's all but impossible
for anything but simple sheets. And it's a huge waste of time - kind of
like using OO in the first place.
> but
> it's an open document format, so I could edit it "manually" by
> unzipping it, and editing the XML myself or do it in another
> opendocument compatible word processor.
So now you have to use another app to read the data in the first "open" app?
> Of course, if the GOAL was to create a nicely formatted document that
> was USEABLE (i.e. a final copy to be sent elsewhere) then I'd export
> it as a PDF file.
OK. I export my MS Access reports to PDF all the time (using Win2PDF - a
nice little program that integrates well with Windows and Office/VBA).
> Y'know, you remind me of a certain Simon Cooke, always trying to get
> in the last word, unless, of course, you are, and only under a
> different name. ;-)
The last word issue is because I'm tenacious and competitive.
As for a different name? Nah. There's only one DFS.
> Regards,
> WS
weishun
DFS wrote:
<snip obtuse exposition of how difficult it is to parse XML manually>
Yes, but the point is that all fields are described in a standard here:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12572/OpenDocument-v1.0-os.pdf
So I open a Excel spreadsheet using unzip...no, can't do that, and look
for my data...no, can't do that either, hmm, let me refer to the schema
so I know where to look...no, can't do that either.
What's your point?
Use OO to read it? (reverse-engineer the format)
What's your definition of lock-in anyway?
>
>>Y'know, you remind me of a certain Simon Cooke, always trying to get
>>in the last word, unless, of course, you are, and only under a
>>different name. ;-)
>
>
> The last word issue is because I'm tenacious and competitive.
>
I'm seeing from your behaviour, that your definition of "competitive" is
to come to COLA, and try to "shoot fish in a barrel".
Don't be surprised when the bullets ricochet and you get all wet, or
they land in your foot.
> As for a different name? Nah. There's only one DFS.
>
And no one has the audacity to emulate you, I see.
Cheers,
WS
The Ghost In The Machine
<dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
wrote
on 30 Jul 2005 12:43:18 +0800
<87ek9gc...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>:
>>>>>> "The" == The Ghost In The Machine <ew...@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> writes:
>
> The> Exactly, whereas with Microsoft Word one can edit the
> The> document with so many other applications, such as Microsoft
> The> WordPad.
>
> The> At least with TeX one can edit it with vi, emacs, jed, joe,
> The> kate, kedit, nano, pico, gedit, xedit, ...
>
> And you've forgotten to list the set of unix text utilities, that can
> be and often are used for GENERATING TeX document fragments: sed, awk,
> grep, cut, paste, perl. The fact that you can generate TeX fragments
> (or even complete documents) from your own program, and the fact that
> you can learn to write programs, is unbeatable.
Good point; the arguments also work for such things as XML
and against ASN.1 -- an issue in another thread on clja.
(There is the minor issue of the line breaks, though. That
gets a little messy.)
>
> Furthermore, since TeX source files are text files, you can use other
> *orthogonal* tools that can process text files: CVS, ispell, etc. How
> can I do version control with Word?
Visual Source Safe, presumably. Unknown how efficient it is, of course,
and there's the issue of merging. I might liken it to using an
automobile to carry a small whale... :-)
> (Forget about that "Version
> Control" feature within Word. It's a joke when compared to RCS.)
Can't say I've used it. Knowing MS's track record, though... :-)
>
>
> The> One could even use <smirk> Notepad </smirk>.
>
> Or 'ex'. :)
>
On Windows? Maybe if one installs Cygnus, but there's also 'edlin'
and 'edit', those two top-notch builtin Windows editors. Edlin makes
TECO looks intuitive. Edit has a menu, I'll give it that. :-)
It also runs in a console window. Wait...wasn't Windows supposed
to be easy, intuitive, graphical, and ubiquitous?
(Well, 1 out of 4 ain't too bad, I guess.)
Edwards
> Linřnut wrote:
>>> In article <ycsGe.34901$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>>>>
>>>> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining
>>>> for the old days.
>>
>> Frankly, my dear DFS, I found writing large documents using the old
>> text-based document processing systems to be much much easier and
>> faster than trying to wrestle with that piece of crap, MS Word.
>
> OK. The old way may have been faster, but the new way is better.
> The new way lets you communicate and format and present information
> in ways that make it easier to read and understand. (at least it's
> supposed to better.)
Eh? What style or manner of "formatting" text do you imagine is
unavailable to a TeX/LaTeX user?
>> MS Word may enhance your productivity if you are writing a memo, a
>> short document, or a recipe, but, for large technical documents, MS
>> Word all but kills productivity.
> What kind of large, technical document? What problems with Word are
> hurting your productivity? Exactly which bugs and features are
> bugging you?
I can't speak to bugs in modern versions of MS Word, as I stopped
using it in 1997 after a "macro virus" then current destroyed a grant
application I was working on. But a google search on '"MS Word"
"macro virus"' at least seems to suggest that these are still a
problem.
--
Cheers,
Darrin
Edwards
> Edwards wrote:
>> In article <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>> Edwards wrote:
>>>> In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>>> when you save them as text files.
>>>>
>>>> <cough> .tex <cough>
>>>
>>> <choke>app lock-in</choke>
>>
>> No, it's human readable.
>
> But basically human-unusable.
Absurdly false. Every human that _doesn't_ use a GUI frontend to
TeX/LaTeX is "using" the raw format every time they write a document,
and quite comfortably. For my money, it's far easier even than HTML.
Once you learn
\command{text argument to the command}
and
{\env text in a [formatting] environment}
there are few surprises remaining.
> Like an OpenOffice document is away from OpenOffice.
Or a .doc away from MS Word, no argument there. But it can't sanely
be claimed that (say) LaTeX's
\section{This is the title of a section}
is anywhere in the same ballpark as the mangled gibberish one gets
from looking at a raw binary-formatted file (like a .doc).
>> google latex2doc latex2rtf latex2html, in any case.
For that matter, I've written little perl scripts to e.g. read in a
.tex file, make various modifications to it, and write the output to
another .tex file (or in some cases a plain text file with no
formatting). I'm no programmer, but because the .tex formatting _is_
plain text, such projects are easy. Try doing the equivalent with a
.doc and the programming language of your choice _without_
implementing something of equivalent complexity to OpenOffice. (Yes,
I know I mentioned all this before, but all you could muster then was
to call me a "spook", whatever that was supposed to mean. Maybe I can
get something more substantive this time. ;))
--
Cheers,
Darrin
Edwards
>>>>>> "Edwards" == Edwards <edw...@nouce.trurl.bsd.uchicago.edu> writes:
>
> >> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
> >>
> >> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit
> >> pining for the old days.
>
> Edwards> http://www.lyx.org, if so desired.
>
> Or TeXmacs.
Had not heard of that, thanks very much.
--
Cheers,
Darrin
Edwards
> Edwards poked his little head through the XP firewall and said:
>> http://www.lyx.org, if so desired.
>
> Of course, I know about that one already. I tried it, but I'll
> never be able to convince the client to switch <grin>.
It doesn't happen to be my cup of tea, but the people I know who use
it are quite enthusiastic about it.
In any case, I don't see how it can be claimed that TeX/LaTeX aren't
"WYSIWYG" in any important way: if one simply means GUI interface,
those obviously exist (at least as frontends); or if one means the
"classic" definition of the screen appearance being equivalent to the
printer output, well, I've never seen any discrepancy between the
ps/pdf previewer (I use gv and acroread respectively, but there are
plenty of them around) contents and the printed output of my
documents.
--
Cheers,
Darrin
DFS
> In article <G7CGe.52$4z...@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>> Edwards wrote:
>>> In article <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>> Edwards wrote:
>>>>> In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>>>> when you save them as text files.
>>>>>
>>>>> <cough> .tex <cough>
>>>>
>>>> <choke>app lock-in</choke>
>>>
>>> No, it's human readable.
>>
>> But basically human-unusable.
>
> Absurdly false. Every human that _doesn't_ use a GUI frontend to
> TeX/LaTeX is "using" the raw format every time they write a document,
> and quite comfortably. For my money, it's far easier even than HTML.
> Once you learn
>
> \command{text argument to the command}
>
> and
>
> {\env text in a [formatting] environment}
>
> there are few surprises remaining.
I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding, underlining,
headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to different parts of the
document, bullet points, numbered bullet points, shading, date fields,
tables, different styles of indenting, page breaks, captions below embedded
objects, etc. TeX does support all that formatting, right? Word sure does.
>> Like an OpenOffice document is away from OpenOffice.
>
> Or a .doc away from MS Word, no argument there. But it can't sanely
> be claimed that (say) LaTeX's
>
> \section{This is the title of a section}
>
> is anywhere in the same ballpark as the mangled gibberish one gets
> from looking at a raw binary-formatted file (like a .doc).
I agree. It can't be sanely claimed.
>>> google latex2doc latex2rtf latex2html, in any case.
>
> For that matter, I've written little perl scripts to e.g. read in a
> .tex file, make various modifications to it, and write the output to
> another .tex file (or in some cases a plain text file with no
> formatting). I'm no programmer, but because the .tex formatting _is_
> plain text, such projects are easy. Try doing the equivalent with a
> .doc and the programming language of your choice _without_
> implementing something of equivalent complexity to OpenOffice.
Why would you want to write perl programs to process .tex files? What was
wrong with them in the first place?
Your mindset is that of a Linux user: hack away just because you can.
> (Yes,
> I know I mentioned all this before, but all you could muster then was
> to call me a "spook", whatever that was supposed to mean. Maybe I can
> get something more substantive this time. ;))
'spook'? I don't think that was me. Unless you're black...
Linønut
> In article <zRMGe.154$4z...@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>
>> OK. The old way may have been faster, but the new way is better.
>> The new way lets you communicate and format and present information
>> in ways that make it easier to read and understand. (at least it's
>> supposed to better.)
>
> Eh? What style or manner of "formatting" text do you imagine is
> unavailable to a TeX/LaTeX user?
None.
>>> MS Word may enhance your productivity if you are writing a memo, a
>>> short document, or a recipe, but, for large technical documents, MS
>>> Word all but kills productivity.
>
>> What kind of large, technical document? What problems with Word are
>> hurting your productivity? Exactly which bugs and features are
>> bugging you?
Small nit: Used to be able to do Alt-F-O-S-c-c-c to get to the Word
style I'd created to represent code. Or Alt-F-O-S-h-h to get quickly to
the desire header level. Those shortcuts no longer word. Instead, an
annoying side pane comes up, and I have to lift my fingers from the
keyboard and move the mouse cursor, and sometimes the scroll bar.
Multiply this by a hundred, and that's a lot of wasted time and effort.
Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word stopped making the
Update Fields available when the whole document was selected. I found a
workaround. Another Windows update, and that problem went away. But
another one cropped up -- clicking the number button now always uses the
"a. b. c." style, and the indent is always inappropriate. Sometimes I
have quite a finger dance to get the numbering and indenting the way it
should be.
Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large documents
lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500), Word seems to run out of
memory, and then hang interminably. The memory doesn't get recovered by
exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
Writing a large document with Word is like hacking a trail while beset
by mosquitoes.
> I can't speak to bugs in modern versions of MS Word, as I stopped
> using it in 1997 after a "macro virus" then current destroyed a grant
> application I was working on. But a google search on '"MS Word"
> "macro virus"' at least seems to suggest that these are still a
> problem.
What's funny is Visio (which we once used heavily) always popped up a
warning about macro viruses. However, doing UML diagram requires macros
to be enabled.
--
Tux rox!
amosf
>> (Yes,
>> I know I mentioned all this before, but all you could muster then was
>> to call me a "spook", whatever that was supposed to mean. Maybe I can
>> get something more substantive this time. ;))
>
> 'spook'? I don't think that was me. Unless you're black...
You don't really expect much more argument out of an overweight racist, huh.
--
-
I use linux. Can anyone give me a good reason to use Windows?
-
DFS
> Edwards poked his little head through the XP firewall and said:
>
>> In article <zRMGe.154$4z...@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>
>>> OK. The old way may have been faster, but the new way is better.
>>> The new way lets you communicate and format and present information
>>> in ways that make it easier to read and understand. (at least it's
>>> supposed to better.)
>>
>> Eh? What style or manner of "formatting" text do you imagine is
>> unavailable to a TeX/LaTeX user?
>
> None.
>
>>>> MS Word may enhance your productivity if you are writing a memo, a
>>>> short document, or a recipe, but, for large technical documents, MS
>>>> Word all but kills productivity.
>>
>>> What kind of large, technical document? What problems with Word are
>>> hurting your productivity? Exactly which bugs and features are
>>> bugging you?
>
> Small nit: Used to be able to do Alt-F-O-S-c-c-c to get to the Word
> style I'd created to represent code. Or Alt-F-O-S-h-h to get quickly
> to the desire header level. Those shortcuts no longer word.
> Instead, an annoying side pane comes up, and I have to lift my
> fingers from the keyboard and move the mouse cursor, and sometimes
> the scroll bar. Multiply this by a hundred, and that's a lot of
> wasted time and effort.
Alt+F brings up the file open browser nowadays.
> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word stopped making the
> Update Fields available when the whole document was selected. I
> found a workaround. Another Windows update, and that problem went
> away. But another one cropped up -- clicking the number button now
> always uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to get the
> numbering and indenting the way it should be.
Wow!
If those are your only problems, Linonit, you must suffer the tortures of
the damned when using Linux, OpenOffice, or OSS in general.
> Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large documents
> lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500), Word seems to run out
> of memory, and then hang interminably. The memory doesn't get
> recovered by exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
>
> Writing a large document with Word is like hacking a trail while beset
> by mosquitoes.
I haven't done any large docs like that myself, in Word or any other word
processor.
What happens when you process 200-500 page docs in OpenOffice?
amosf
> Linønut wrote:
>> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word stopped making the
>> Update Fields available when the whole document was selected. I
>> found a workaround. Another Windows update, and that problem went
>> away. But another one cropped up -- clicking the number button now
>> always uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
>> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to get the
>> numbering and indenting the way it should be.
>
> Wow!
>
> If those are your only problems, Linonit, you must suffer the tortures of
> the damned when using Linux, OpenOffice, or OSS in general.
What? Like the screen blank bug? Or the firefox will install on everyone's
PC but Doof's bug?
>> Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large documents
>> lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500), Word seems to run out
>> of memory, and then hang interminably. The memory doesn't get
>> recovered by exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
>>
>> Writing a large document with Word is like hacking a trail while beset
>> by mosquitoes.
>
> I haven't done any large docs like that myself, in Word or any other word
> processor.
>
> What happens when you process 200-500 page docs in OpenOffice?
It works? OOo with a 586 page doc in linux seems fine.
DFS
> DFS wrote something like:
>
>> Linųnut wrote:
>
>>> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word stopped making
>>> the Update Fields available when the whole document was selected. I
>>> found a workaround. Another Windows update, and that problem went
>>> away. But another one cropped up -- clicking the number button now
>>> always uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
>>> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to get the
>>> numbering and indenting the way it should be.
>>
>> Wow!
>>
>> If those are your only problems, Linonit, you must suffer the
>> tortures of the damned when using Linux, OpenOffice, or OSS in
>> general.
>
> What? Like the screen blank bug? Or the firefox will install on
> everyone's PC but Doof's bug?
More like using Kynaptic, which installs non-working entries to the menus.
Or upgrading to the latest version of a distro and watching your 3d video
quit working.
Or trying to compile and install from source and getting the endless
dependency problems.
Or watching an installer eat your partition off a drive you weren't
installing to.
Or seeing how different the same version of the same app (say Konsole) looks
and feels from distro to distro.
Or just dealing with the sheer frustration and quirks.
* Last night I installed Kubuntu on my P3-800mhz system. It defaulted to a
1280x1024 resolution (which matched the icon sizes of my Windows 1024x768
res?, but anyway), and it looked fine. Shut down last night, boot up this
morning and it boots to a 640x480 screen res (with the huge icons), and
there's no higher res option available under KDE. Reboot and suddenly I'm
back at 1280x1024. WTF changed? My underwear I guess.
* opening Kontact and seeing there's no entry for News (Knode). Pick around
the menus and I finally find 'Select Components' and there it is.
* having several useless laptop-related menu entries.
* go to burn a CD in K3b (still in Kubuntu) and it tells me it can't burn
CDs because cdrdao isn't installed. The recommended solution provided on
screen? "Install the cdrdao package". LMAO! I should have posted it to
cola, but I was shuffling distros and earlier today I replaced Kubuntu with
Mandriva LE 2005. Probably a mistake, since I like the Synaptic package
mgr. in Kubuntu.
On the plus side, Kubuntu and Mandriva both run pretty well on that older
system.
>>> Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large documents
>>> lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500), Word seems to run out
>>> of memory, and then hang interminably. The memory doesn't get
>>> recovered by exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
>>>
>>> Writing a large document with Word is like hacking a trail while
>>> beset by mosquitoes.
>>
>> I haven't done any large docs like that myself, in Word or any other
>> word processor.
>>
>> What happens when you process 200-500 page docs in OpenOffice?
>
> It works?
Left yourself a big out with that question mark, didn't ya Crocodile
Dumbdee?
> OOo with a 586 page doc in linux seems fine.
What 586 page doc? I'll download it and try it in Word 2000 (the latest
version I have) and OO whatever for Windows.
Jesse F. Hughes
> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>
> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining for the
> old days.
I guess the vast majority of Computer Science departments are filled
with dinosaurs. LaTeX is a much more popular format for writing
computer science articles than Word or any other word processor.
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"Dead men can't talk. Especially when they've been cremated."
--- From the 1944 radio program "Adventures By Morse"
Jesse F. Hughes
> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
> underlining, headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to
> different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered bullet
> points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles of indenting,
> page breaks, captions below embedded objects, etc. TeX does support
> all that formatting, right? Word sure does.
Of course it does. But it does so sanely. Most of those details are
handled by document classes or LaTeX packages, which are typically
provided for the user. The document that the user writes is not
particularly complex and typical users are concerned with logical
structure of the document, not mind-numbing tedious bullshit like
"different styles of indenting".
An exception is the beamer class, for presenting slides via a computer
beamer. Those documents are sometimes a touch hard to read. But
articles? Letters? Books? Dissertations? All easily human
readable.
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"Knowing about logic is not the same as being in touch with reality."
-- David Kastrup
DFS
> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
>> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
>> underlining, headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to
>> different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered bullet
>> points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles of indenting,
>> page breaks, captions below embedded objects, etc. TeX does support
>> all that formatting, right? Word sure does.
>
> Of course it does. But it does so sanely. Most of those details are
> handled by document classes or LaTeX packages, which are typically
> provided for the user. The document that the user writes is not
> particularly complex and typical users are concerned with logical
> structure of the document, not mind-numbing tedious bullshit like
> "different styles of indenting".
I'm hearing some backpedaling from the original poster's claim. Edward is
claiming TeX docs are easy to read outside the TeX environment. Now you're
minimizing the importance of formatting. Why?
> An exception is the beamer class, for presenting slides via a computer
> beamer. Those documents are sometimes a touch hard to read. But
> articles? Letters? Books? Dissertations? All easily human
> readable.
Do you have one with some significant amounts of formatting, as I mentioned
above? A typical dissertation or academic article should probably contain
all of them, I would think.
DFS
> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
>> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>>
>> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining
>> for the old days.
>
> I guess the vast majority of Computer Science departments are filled
> with dinosaurs. LaTeX is a much more popular format for writing
> computer science articles than Word or any other word processor.
Outside academia, LaTeX is used to prevent unwanted documents from being
created.
But seriously folks... TeX never caught on with the world, now did it?
Jesse F. Hughes
But seriously, folks... TeX succeeds remarkably well in its niche:
typesetting technical documents. In fact, I use it for everything,
but the primary aim of TeX was so that users could do their own
typesetting, especially for scientific and mathematical documents.
There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this regard.
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"Truth is common stuff, ready to your hand, but lies you have to make
yourself, and you can't be sure they are any good until you've
used them --- and then it's too late." John Steinbeck
DFS
> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
>> Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
>>> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Times change. The world embraced WYSIWYG two decades ago.
>>>>
>>>> There's no need to reveal you're a Linosaur, old guy. Quit pining
>>>> for the old days.
>>>
>>> I guess the vast majority of Computer Science departments are filled
>>> with dinosaurs. LaTeX is a much more popular format for writing
>>> computer science articles than Word or any other word processor.
>>
>> Outside academia, LaTeX is used to prevent unwanted documents from
>> being created.
>>
>> But seriously folks... TeX never caught on with the world, now did
>> it?
>
> But seriously, folks... TeX succeeds remarkably well in its niche:
> typesetting technical documents. In fact, I use it for everything,
> but the primary aim of TeX was so that users could do their own
> typesetting, especially for scientific and mathematical documents.
>
> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this regard.
I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those .tex files
outside of the TeX environment. Can nobody produce one?
Jesse F. Hughes
> Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
>> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>
>>> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
>>> underlining, headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to
>>> different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered bullet
>>> points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles of indenting,
>>> page breaks, captions below embedded objects, etc. TeX does support
>>> all that formatting, right? Word sure does.
>>
>> Of course it does. But it does so sanely. Most of those details are
>> handled by document classes or LaTeX packages, which are typically
>> provided for the user. The document that the user writes is not
>> particularly complex and typical users are concerned with logical
>> structure of the document, not mind-numbing tedious bullshit like
>> "different styles of indenting".
>
> I'm hearing some backpedaling from the original poster's claim.
> Edward is claiming TeX docs are easy to read outside the TeX
> environment. Now you're minimizing the importance of formatting.
> Why?
The two claims are utterly distinct.
LaTeX source *is* very easy to read (depending partly on the author's
writing style). All I said is that users shouldn't be twiddling about
with nonsense like indentation styles when writing an article. They
should be concerned with logical structure and presentation. Let the
document class handle nonsense like indentation styles.
Maybe you're just confused about the nature of LaTeX source files.
You can indent those however the heck you want. Indentation in the
source file does not produce indentation in produced article (just
like indentation in the HTML file is not reflected in the browser's
presentation of the file).
>> An exception is the beamer class, for presenting slides via a computer
>> beamer. Those documents are sometimes a touch hard to read. But
>> articles? Letters? Books? Dissertations? All easily human
>> readable.
>
> Do you have one with some significant amounts of formatting, as I mentioned
> above? A typical dissertation or academic article should probably contain
> all of them, I would think.
I have a dissertation and several articles. You can see them at
http://phiwumbda.org/~jesse/papers. I will email the source on
request. (Warning: I use a lot of commutative diagrams and the source
code for those is not so easily readable, but it is remarkably
flexible.)
Let's look at your list.
bolding, underlining,
Trivial: \textbf{bold} and \underline{underline}
headers,
footers,
Done automatically by the document class, if needed. I've never
done anything special for these, aside from give a short version of
the header or footer material for the preamble.
tables of contents,
Automatic. The only work I've ever done is to tell it whether I
want sections or subsections listed.
hyperlinks to different parts of the document,
Most hyperlinks I've used are automatically generated, but I vaguely
recall hand-generating a few in the past. I'd have to look for an
example.
bullet points,
Trivial: \begin{\itemize}
\item ...
\item ...
\end{itemize}
numbered bullet
I don't usually use numbered *bullets*, but enumerated lists.
Except, when using the beamer class, I use numbered bullets and
there is nothing special about that. Just an extra command in the
preamble.
points,
I don't know what you mean.
shading,
Shaded boxes are easy. Not sure what other shading you have in
mind.
date fields,
I don't know what you mean.
tables,
No, you're right. No one ever thought of putting a table in a
technical article. That's currently unsupported in LaTeX.
Seriously, the tabular environment is very flexible.
different styles of indenting,
I really am not sure what you have in mind here. For what purpose?
What is the indentation supposed to convey?
page breaks,
A user should almost never be concerned with this. Let the program
decide where to break a page, because it knows better than you do
most of the time. Nonetheless, this is trivial: \pagebreak.
captions below embedded objects,
Utterly trivial.
\begin{figure}
...
\caption{Hi, Charlie!}
\end{figure}
etc.
But your list really shows what many LaTeX users believe: word
processors encourage a person to pay attention to dull details like
numbered bullets and pagebreaks when they should be writing.
--
"I need to brief someone in government[...] Now if you acknowledge that
my research MIGHT be important, then you can agree with me that it needs
to be taken to areas off Usenet where some serious research can take
place behind closed doors. I'd prefer the NSA." James S. Harris
amosf (Tim Fairchild)
> amosf wrote:
>> DFS wrote something like:
>>
>>> Linųnut wrote:
>>
>>>> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word stopped making
>>>> the Update Fields available when the whole document was selected. I
>>>> found a workaround. Another Windows update, and that problem went
>>>> away. But another one cropped up -- clicking the number button now
>>>> always uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
>>>> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to get the
>>>> numbering and indenting the way it should be.
>>>
>>> Wow!
>>>
>>> If those are your only problems, Linonit, you must suffer the
>>> tortures of the damned when using Linux, OpenOffice, or OSS in
>>> general.
>>
>> What? Like the screen blank bug? Or the firefox will install on
>> everyone's PC but Doof's bug?
>
> More like using Kynaptic, which installs non-working entries to the menus.
Don't know as I haven't tried it and I only have the word of an anonymous
liar.
> Or upgrading to the latest version of a distro and watching your 3d video
> quit working.
Never had to reinstall video drivers when upgrading a version of windows?
> Or trying to compile and install from source and getting the endless
> dependency problems.
So tell us about compiling and installing an app in windows? How hard is
that? Last time I tried I couldn't find the compiler.
> Or watching an installer eat your partition off a drive you weren't
> installing to.
Never happened here. We've heard from possible trolls that this was an FC4
bug. Installers do warn you to back up data tho just in case. After all,
have you ever seen windows wipe a partition during an install?
> Or seeing how different the same version of the same app (say Konsole)
> looks and feels from distro to distro.
You tell me. I don't do the distro shuffle. That's more a troll thing.
> Or just dealing with the sheer frustration and quirks.
Don't know, I left the frustration behind with windows. Been nice on my main
PC for years thanks.
> * Last night I installed Kubuntu on my P3-800mhz system. It defaulted to
> a 1280x1024 resolution (which matched the icon sizes of my Windows
> 1024x768
> res?, but anyway), and it looked fine. Shut down last night, boot up this
> morning and it boots to a 640x480 screen res (with the huge icons), and
> there's no higher res option available under KDE. Reboot and suddenly I'm
> back at 1280x1024. WTF changed? My underwear I guess.
Chances are you are full of shit, of course. It's easy to lie when you are
an anonymous troll.
> * opening Kontact and seeing there's no entry for News (Knode). Pick
> around the menus and I finally find 'Select Components' and there it is.
My Kontact works fine. I'd suggest you stop the distro shuffle and settle
down to just one.
> * having several useless laptop-related menu entries.
You really have to stop wanking while installing.
> * go to burn a CD in K3b (still in Kubuntu) and it tells me it can't burn
> CDs because cdrdao isn't installed. The recommended solution provided on
> screen? "Install the cdrdao package". LMAO! I should have posted it to
> cola, but I was shuffling distros and earlier today I replaced Kubuntu
> with
> Mandriva LE 2005. Probably a mistake, since I like the Synaptic package
> mgr. in Kubuntu.
So you do the troll distro shuffle. And?
> On the plus side, Kubuntu and Mandriva both run pretty well on that older
> system.
On any system with well supported hardware. Without a troll at the wheel.
>>>> Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large documents
>>>> lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500), Word seems to run out
>>>> of memory, and then hang interminably. The memory doesn't get
>>>> recovered by exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
>>>>
>>>> Writing a large document with Word is like hacking a trail while
>>>> beset by mosquitoes.
>>>
>>> I haven't done any large docs like that myself, in Word or any other
>>> word processor.
>>>
>>> What happens when you process 200-500 page docs in OpenOffice?
>>
>> It works?
>
> Left yourself a big out with that question mark, didn't ya Crocodile
> Dumbdee?
The question mark was due to disbelief mostly. What else would OOo do except
load and manipulate the document?
>> OOo with a 586 page doc in linux seems fine.
>
> What 586 page doc? I'll download it and try it in Word 2000 (the latest
> version I have) and OO whatever for Windows.
Since the document I tried is an unpublished novel in a series, I think I
won't let you download a copy. Find your own.
That was OOo for linux, of course. I don't see much point running OOo in
windows.
Jesse F. Hughes
> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those .tex
> files outside of the TeX environment. Can nobody produce one?
I told you I'd be happy to do so via email.
Alternatively, pick a section of one of my articles and ask for the
source. I'll post small sections.
(Note: I freely admit that some of the things I write are fairly
illegible unless one knows the esoterics of a few specialist packages,
like xy. But the body of a LaTeX document is fairly easily readable.)
I don't see the point in posting an entire file. The shortest file I
see handy is about 720 lines (notes for a paper that I never wrote) or
a one-page abstract with very little interesting LaTeX features (and
also done with a co-author, so I won't post it).
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"Leaving things always seems to fix me,
Running seems to ease my worried mind."
-- Bad Livers, "Honey, I've Found a Brand New Way"
Linønut
> DFS wrote something like:
>
>> Linønut wrote:
>
>>> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word stopped making the
>>> Update Fields available when the whole document was selected. I
>>> found a workaround. Another Windows update, and that problem went
>>> away. But another one cropped up -- clicking the number button now
>>> always uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
>>> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to get the
>>> numbering and indenting the way it should be.
>>
>> Wow!
>>
>> If those are your only problems, Linonit, you must suffer the tortures of
>> the damned when using Linux, OpenOffice, or OSS in general.
>
> What? Like the screen blank bug? Or the firefox will install on everyone's
> PC but Doof's bug?
What DFS doesn't realize is just how much these seemingly minor problems
hamper productivity.
At least, with Word XP, I haven't yet seen the corruption of documents
that happened fairly frequently with Word 2000.
>> I haven't done any large docs like that myself, in Word or any other word
>> processor.
>>
>> What happens when you process 200-500 page docs in OpenOffice?
>
> It works? OOo with a 586 page doc in linux seems fine.
Personally, I really don't care for either Word or OOWriter. I like
using vi keystrokes for editing.
Modern word processors force your hands to roam too far from the home
position on the keyboard.
--
Tux rox!
amosf (Tim Fairchild)
I don't use OOo for big docs, novels, books, etc, I just loaded in to try
stuff. I never liked the large file size for large docs. I've used things
like lyx as a front end at times tho.
DFS
> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
<snip>
>>>> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
>>>> underlining, headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to
>>>> different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered bullet
>>>> points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles of
>>>> indenting, page breaks, captions below embedded objects, etc. TeX
>>>> does support all that formatting, right? Word sure does.
<snip>
> But your list really shows what many LaTeX users believe: word
> processors encourage a person to pay attention to dull details like
> numbered bullets and pagebreaks when they should be writing.
Hmmm... aren't you a logician of sorts? Well, your skills seem to have
escaped you right here: with great pride you show me a system (LaTeX) that
you claim trivially handles various formatting features, then you turn
around and deride the usage of those features.
And it seems the developer of LaTeX also pays attention to dull details,
'cause he went to the trouble of building support for them.
DFS
> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
>> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those .tex
>> files outside of the TeX environment. Can nobody produce one?
>
> I told you I'd be happy to do so via email.
Why? cola doesn't make you happy?
> Alternatively, pick a section of one of my articles and ask for the
> source. I'll post small sections.
I'll let you pick.
> (Note: I freely admit that some of the things I write are fairly
> illegible unless one knows the esoterics of a few specialist packages,
> like xy. But the body of a LaTeX document is fairly easily readable.)
OK. So let's see one. Just show me some sections with somewhat copious use
of formatting.
> I don't see the point in posting an entire file.
Then post a few hundred lines. I want to see this mythical "easily human
readable" Tex source.
Lee Sau Dan
>> Furthermore, since TeX source files are text files, you can
>> use other *orthogonal* tools that can process text files: CVS,
>> ispell, etc. How can I do version control with Word?
The> Visual Source Safe, presumably. Unknown how efficient it is,
The> of course, and there's the issue of merging.
Many people describe VSS as a broken clone of RCS (not CVS!). Just
like "shortcuts" are a broken clone of symbolic links.
The> I might liken it to using an automobile to carry a small
The> whale... :-)
>> (Forget about that "Version Control" feature within Word. It's
>> a joke when compared to RCS.)
The> Can't say I've used it. Knowing MS's track record,
The> though... :-)
But that's already "the most advanced thing" they can ever have! :)
The> One could even use <smirk> Notepad </smirk>.
>> Or 'ex'. :)
The> On Windows?
No. I mean on unices. On Win/DOS, we used to have edlin, which is an
'ex' clone that can handle < 65536 bytes.
The> Maybe if one installs Cygnus, but there's also 'edlin' and
The> 'edit', those two top-notch builtin Windows editors.
Does EDLIN still exist in modern Windows? I doubt.
The> Edlin makes TECO looks intuitive. Edit has a menu, I'll give
The> it that. :-) It also runs in a console window. Wait...wasn't
The> Windows supposed to be easy, intuitive, graphical, and
The> ubiquitous?
Yes, windows (not capitalized) are ubiquitous. Fortunately, they
aren't as broken as Windows. They can withstand strong wind, heavy
rain and snow. At least not as brittle as Windows. :)
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Lee Sau Dan
>> OK. The old way may have been faster, but the new way is
>> better. The new way lets you communicate and format and
>> present information in ways that make it easier to read and
>> understand. (at least it's supposed to better.)
Edwards> Eh? What style or manner of "formatting" text do you
Edwards> imagine is unavailable to a TeX/LaTeX user?
Not well-thought and self-inconsistent styles, of course! ;)
>>> MS Word may enhance your productivity if you are writing a
>>> memo, a short document, or a recipe, but, for large technical
>>> documents, MS Word all but kills productivity.
So true. I've seen so many people having to *struggle* with that
"intuitive" interface, such as the Auto-Corrupt^H^H^Hect(TM) feature.
>> What kind of large, technical document? What problems with
>> Word are hurting your productivity? Exactly which bugs and
>> features are bugging you?
Edwards> I can't speak to bugs in modern versions of MS Word, as I
Edwards> stopped using it in 1997 after a "macro virus" then
Edwards> current destroyed a grant application I was working on.
I quitted that zoo 2.5 years earlier than you did. :)
Edwards> But a google search on '"MS Word" "macro virus"' at least
Edwards> seems to suggest that these are still a problem.
Idiotic designs lead to endless problems. Not a surprise.
lqu...@uku.co.uk
Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>
> Does EDLIN still exist in modern Windows? I doubt.
>
Actually it does exist and is even installed by default.
Must be for the 0.003% of Windows users who need it. Which equates to
quite a few people.
Lee Sau Dan
Linųnut> Small nit: Used to be able to do Alt-F-O-S-c-c-c to get
Linųnut> to the Word style I'd created to represent code. Or
Linųnut> Alt-F-O-S-h-h to get quickly to the desire header level.
Linųnut> Those shortcuts no longer word.
As far as I can remember, you can activate the style box in the tool
bar with Ctrl-Shift-S. So, maybe, you could replace that Alt-F-O-S
with Ctrl-Shift-S.
But still, the problem with styles in Word is that they're
"user-unfriendly". The UI does not encourage you to use them.
Rather, they discourage the use of style with those clumsy keystrokes
needed to access them, as well as the unproductive UI for modifying
the styles.
Linųnut> Instead, an annoying side pane comes up, and I have to
Linųnut> lift my fingers from the keyboard and move the mouse
Linųnut> cursor, and sometimes the scroll bar. Multiply this by a
Linųnut> hundred, and that's a lot of wasted time and effort.
In other words, the UI discourages the use of styles. What a big
design mistake. And you still believe in the marketing term
"user-friendly"?
Linųnut> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word
Linųnut> stopped making the Update Fields available when the whole
Linųnut> document was selected. I found a workaround. Another
Linųnut> Windows update, and that problem went away. But another
Linųnut> one cropped up -- clicking the number button now always
Linųnut> uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
Linųnut> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to
Linųnut> get the numbering and indenting the way it should be.
That reveals another problem with MS's design: you cannot install 2
versions of the same software on the same machine. They can't
coexist, because they fight each other for resources (such as file
namespace, registry namespace). So, every "upgrade" has to inevitably
remove the old version. Everyone who understands _version control_
know why it is important to be able to keep older versions. It
applies also to managing installed software packages: older versions
of a software need to be kept around on a production system, so that
there is the possibility of rolling back to the older but working
versions just in case. The migration to the new version can then be
done step by step -- confidently. MS can never imagine that.
Compare this with the carefully designed GCC, which not only allows
multiple versions to be installed on the same machine concurrently,
but even provides command line options for you to elect which version
to use. And it defaults to the newest version. Most unix
applications are designed to be installable completely under some
specific directory (e.g. /opt/myapp, /usr/local/myapp), indirectly
making it possible to install multiple versions simultaneously by
means of using different directory names for installation. They
various versions can then be invoked from a simple shell-script that
allows the user to select which version to run. (Thank's to the power
and expressiveness of unix shell scripts, which make DOS BAT file a
big big joke.)
Linųnut> Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large
Linųnut> documents lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500),
Linųnut> Word seems to run out of memory, and then hang
Linųnut> interminably. The memory doesn't get recovered by
Linųnut> exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
So scary...
--
Lee Sau Dan
Lee Sau Dan
DFS> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
DFS> underlining,
In LaTeX, we don't say "bold", "underline", "italic", "font size
12pt", etc. Rather, we mark up the documents **structurally** with
structural markups: \emph{emphasized text}, \section{Section heading
--- who cares whether it's 12pt or 14pt? The default works, and
publishers usually define their own style}.
Here is an example of pdfTeX-generated PDF document:
http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee/fun/STL-doc/STL.pdf
It has bookmarks and hyperlinks between cross references. (Try to click
a page number in one of the many indices!)
DFS> headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks
DFS> to different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered
DFS> bullet points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles
DFS> of indenting, page breaks, captions below embedded objects,
DFS> etc. TeX does support all that formatting, right? Word sure
DFS> does.
You should use LaTeX for documents with all these features. They're
all supported, and guess what: pdfLaTeX can generate PDF files
*directly*, full of hyperlinks:
1) from table of contents (automatically generated, of course)
to section headings
2) from footnote markers to footnote text
3) from [citation] markers to the corresponding bibliographic
entry
And LaTeX has more:
BibTeX -- automatic generation of bibliography list from a
database.
Should I mention index generation?
>> For that matter, I've written little perl scripts to e.g. read
>> in a .tex file, make various modifications to it, and write the
>> output to another .tex file (or in some cases a plain text file
>> with no formatting). I'm no programmer, but because the .tex
>> formatting _is_ plain text, such projects are easy. Try doing
>> the equivalent with a .doc and the programming language of your
>> choice _without_ implementing something of equivalent
>> complexity to OpenOffice.
DFS> Why would you want to write perl programs to process .tex
DFS> files?
Because manually doing that would be tedious an error-prone.
DFS> What was wrong with them in the first place?
I could be nothing wrong. Just that you want to replace some text
others.
DFS> Your mindset is that of a Linux user: hack away just because
DFS> you can.
No. The mindset is to let the computer do the boring, tedious and
repetitive things (by writing a simple shell/Perl script or even C
program). That frees up our time for the more interesting and
creative tasks.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Jesse F. Hughes
> Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
>> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
> <snip>
>
>>>>> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
>>>>> underlining, headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to
>>>>> different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered bullet
>>>>> points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles of
>>>>> indenting, page breaks, captions below embedded objects, etc. TeX
>>>>> does support all that formatting, right? Word sure does.
>
> <snip>
>
>> But your list really shows what many LaTeX users believe: word
>> processors encourage a person to pay attention to dull details like
>> numbered bullets and pagebreaks when they should be writing.
>
> Hmmm... aren't you a logician of sorts? Well, your skills seem to have
> escaped you right here: with great pride you show me a system (LaTeX) that
> you claim trivially handles various formatting features, then you turn
> around and deride the usage of those features.
And it does trivially handle those features. Nonetheless, the average
writer should almost never ask for a page break in a specific
location.
> And it seems the developer of LaTeX also pays attention to dull details,
> 'cause he went to the trouble of building support for them.
They are needed for document class developers and on rare occasions by
us mere mortal users.
--
"They are anti-mathematicians, evil incarnate, dedicated to undermining
intellectual development in this area. If you never thought such
people could actually exist, outside of myths or legends, welcome to
the real world." --James S Harris on evil incarnate's Usenet presence
Lee Sau Dan
Edwards> In any case, I don't see how it can be claimed that
Edwards> TeX/LaTeX aren't "WYSIWYG" in any important way: if one
Edwards> simply means GUI interface, those obviously exist (at
Edwards> least as frontends);
That's usually *fake* WYSIWYG. The editable on-screen presentation is
usually an approximation of the final printout. Not an exact match.
If not, then why are the Office program nowadays equipped with a
"print preview" feature? Isn't the so called WYSIWYG interface
supposed to be already a print-preview by definition?
Edwards> or if one means the "classic" definition of the screen
Edwards> appearance being equivalent to the printer output, well,
Edwards> I've never seen any discrepancy between the ps/pdf
Edwards> previewer (I use gv and acroread respectively, but there
Edwards> are plenty of them around) contents and the printed
Edwards> output of my documents.
I can't agree more. That's why I always tell people that LaTeX gives
me WYSIWYG -- the real WYSIWYG. (I still miss Word Perfect 5.1,
which, with the "reveal codes" feature turned on, is much like working
in LaTeX. And it has a print-preview feature, analogous to 'gv' and
'xpdf'.)
Lee Sau Dan
>> I guess the vast majority of Computer Science departments are
>> filled with dinosaurs. LaTeX is a much more popular format for
>> writing computer science articles than Word or any other word
>> processor.
DFS> Outside academia, LaTeX is used to prevent unwanted documents
DFS> from being created.
DFS> But seriously folks... TeX never caught on with the world,
DFS> now did it?
Heard of AMSTeX? Guess what "AMS" stands for!
Lee Sau Dan
>> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
>> regard.
DFS> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those
DFS> .tex files outside of the TeX environment.
There is no difference between "inside" or "outside the TeX
environment". They're ASCII text files. You can even edit them with
<cough> WordPad!
DFS> Can nobody produce one?
Can't you use googles? It shouldn't be that difficult to invent the
search phrase "LaTeX tutorial" or "LaTeX sample", should it?
Jesse F. Hughes
> Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
>> "DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>
>>> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those .tex
>>> files outside of the TeX environment. Can nobody produce one?
>>
>> I told you I'd be happy to do so via email.
>
> Why? cola doesn't make you happy?
Shithead. Why not ask for an email? Do it from a throwaway account
if you're such a chickenshit that you don't care to give a real
address.
>> Alternatively, pick a section of one of my articles and ask for the
>> source. I'll post small sections.
>
> I'll let you pick.
>> I don't see the point in posting an entire file.
>
> Then post a few hundred lines. I want to see this mythical "easily human
> readable" Tex source.
Here is a short and utterly unrepresentative sample from my LaTeX source
files. It is a one-page workshop announcement. It includes a couple
of triangular diagrams done using xy (and not very nicely done -- I
should have found a different means, but I use xy rather a lot).
These are not particularly readable, but I told you that xy is a bit
ugly.
The rest of the file is clearly, easily, trivially readable.
It doesn't contain any mathematical formulas, of course, since it is a
workshop announcement. As I said, it's not really a standard example
of my writing, but it is short and easy to post.
I see that it includes spurious references to a bibliography. That's
an artifact of cut-n-paste writing. There was no bibliography for
this document. Also, it uses explicit \vspace, when I should have
just used one of the various \[big,med,small]skip commands, but I
never promised I was a good LaTeX user.
The compiled document can be found on the web somewhere or other. It
is frankly not very pretty, but this kind of layout isn't my forte.
It is readable enough without taxing my attention, but I am sure that
someone familiar with creating similar documents could have done a
much prettier job than this.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xypic}
\usepackage{array}
\xyoption{frame}
\title{Norms, Reasoning and Knowledge in Technology\\
{\large Norms in Knowledge NWO Project\\
Section of Philosophy and Ethics of Technology\\
Technical University of Eindhoven\\
}}
\begin{document}
\date{June 3--4, 2005}
\maketitle
On the weekend of June 3--4, 2005, the Philosophy Dept. of the
Technical University of Eindhoven is hosting a workshop titled
``Norms, Reasoning and Knowledge in Technology,'' in Boxmeer, the
Netherlands. The conference is part of the ongoing \textit{Norms in
Knowledge} NWO project.
The broad aim of the conference is to make clearer some of the norms
which arise from technological reasoning and knowledge. What features
of technological reasoning yield prescriptions in the engineering and
design process and how do these prescriptions bind? Which different
forms of reasoning (practical, diagrammatic, heuristic) appear in the
engineering practice and what norms of rationality apply to each? We
are also interested in the relationship between technological
knowledge and technological reasoning. What are the distinctive
features of technological knowledge and how does this knowledge enter
the reasoning and design process? Are norms of technological
knowledge different from norms of knowledge generally? What is the
normative status of rules of thumb, good engineering practice,
functional knowledge, etc.?
The broad aim of the conference is graphically represented in the
following triangle. We want to understand the relationship between
the top two vertices and also to be clearer on how reasoning and
knowledge yields and is constrained by norms in engineering and
design.
\[\xy
*+++{\begin{minipage}{0.75in}{
\begin{center}
Technological reasoning
\end{center}
}
\end{minipage}
}*\frm<44pt>{-}="A" ;
(50,0)*+++{\begin{minipage}{0.75in}{
\begin{center}
Technological knowledge
\end{center}}
\end{minipage}
}*\frm<44pt>{-}="B" ;
(25,-25)*+++{\begin{minipage}{0.75in}{
\begin{center}
Norms
\end{center}
}
\end{minipage}}*\frm<44pt>{-}="C"
\ar@{<->}"A";"B"
\ar@{<->}"C";"B"
\ar@{<->}"C";"A"
\endxy\]
More narrowly (and perhaps more formally), we would like to focus
attention on means and ends and their relationship to artifactual
function, as well as the relationship of each to norms. These
questions are represented in the triangle below.
\[\xy
*+++{\begin{minipage}{0.7in}{
\begin{center}
Means-end reasoning
\end{center}
}
\end{minipage}
}*\frm<44pt>{-}="A" ;
(50,0)*+++{\begin{minipage}{0.7in}{
\begin{center}
Artifact function
\end{center}}
\end{minipage}
}*\frm<44pt>{-}="B" ;
(25,-25)*+++{\begin{minipage}{0.7in}{
\begin{center}
Norms
\end{center}
}
\end{minipage}}*\frm<44pt>{-}="C"
\ar@{<->}"A";"B"
\ar@{<->}"C";"B"
\ar@{<->}"C";"A"
\endxy
\]
For this focus, we would like to address the following topics. Do all
technological functional ascriptions involve means-end ascriptions?
What distinguishes artifact functions from mere propensities? How do
means-end ascriptions (understood in terms of dispositions) yield the
deontic operators of practical reasoning? What further norms are
involved in artifact functions that do not arise in pure dispositional
accounts and how are these norms justified?
The workshop features a diverse and distinguished panel of speakers
interested in the normative aspects of technological knowledge and the
relationship between practical reasoning and artifactual knowledge.
\vspace{0.25in}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}[t]{l}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{Confirmed speakers}\\ \hline
[list of speakers snipped, save my own entry...]
Hughes, Jesse \emph{Technical University of Eindhoven}\\
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\bibliography{./func/practical-reasoning.bib} \bibliographystyle{plain}
\end{document}
--
"That's all the legacy I ever wanted, to have people remember me like
a shooting star streaking across their Life sky, illuminating, for
just one moment, unparalleled beauty unique to itself."
-- Weblogs are a particularly humble medium, unique to themselves.
Lee Sau Dan
>> niche: typesetting technical documents. In fact, I use it for
>> everything, but the primary aim of TeX was so that users could
>> do their own typesetting, especially for scientific and
>> mathematical documents.
>>
>> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
>> regard.
DFS> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those
DFS> .tex files outside of the TeX environment. Can nobody
DFS> produce one?
The following is a LaTeX example. The result of processing with
pdfLaTeX can be obtained from:
http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee/secret/dd98cec60d19c8b48c760d0e7f94babb/abc.pdf
Although it's just 3 pages, it does demonstrate hyperlinks in
cross-references, table of contents, section headings and footnotes.
==================== abc.tex ====================
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\title{The GNU Project}
\author{by Richard Stallman\\
originally published in the book ``Open Sources''}
\date{}
\begin{document}
%% and you can insert comments **easily** --- how can you do that in Word?
\tableofcontents % just to demonstrate this feature
\section{The first software-sharing community}
When I started working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971,
I became part of a software-sharing community that had existed for
many years. Sharing of software was not limited to our particular
community; it is as old as computers, just as sharing of recipes is as
old as cooking. But we did it more than most.
The AI Lab used a timesharing operating system called ITS (the
Incompatible Timesharing System) that the lab's staff hackers\footnote{
The use of ``hacker'' to mean ``security breaker'' is a confusion on
the part of the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that
meaning, and continue using the word to mean, ``Someone who loves to
program and enjoys being clever about it.''
}
had
designed and written in assembler language for the Digital PDP-10, one
of the large computers of the era. As a member of this community, an
AI lab staff system hacker, my job was to improve this system.
We did not call our software ``free software'', because that term did
not yet exist; but that is what it was. Whenever people from another
university or a company wanted to port and use a program, we gladly
let them. If you saw someone using an unfamiliar and interesting
program, you could always ask to see the source code, so that you
could read it, change it, or cannibalize parts of it to make a new
program.
\section{The collapse of the community}
The situation changed drastically in the early 1980s when Digital
discontinued the PDP-10 series. Its architecture, elegant and powerful
in the 60s, could not extend naturally to the larger address spaces
that were becoming feasible in the 80s. This meant that nearly all of
the programs composing ITS were obsolete.
The AI lab hacker community had already collapsed, not long before. In
1981, the spin-off company Symbolics had hired away nearly all of the
hackers from the AI lab, and the depopulated community was unable to
maintain itself. (The book Hackers, by Steve Levy, describes these
events, as well as giving a clear picture of this community in its
prime.) When the AI lab bought a new PDP-10 in 1982, its
administrators decided to use Digital's non-free timesharing system
instead of ITS.
The modern computers of the era, such as the VAX or the 68020, had
their own operating systems, but none of them were free software: you
had to sign a nondisclosure agreement even to get an executable copy.
This meant that the first step in using a computer was to promise not
to help your neighbor. A cooperating community was forbidden. The rule
made by the owners of proprietary software was, ``If you share with
your neighbor, you are a pirate. If you want any changes, beg us to
make them.''
The idea that the proprietary software social system---the system that
says you are not allowed to share or change software---is antisocial,
that it is unethical, that it is simply wrong, may come as a surprise
to some readers. But what else could we say about a system based on
dividing the public and keeping users helpless? Readers who find the
idea surprising may have taken proprietary social system as given, or
judged it on the terms suggested by proprietary software businesses.
Software publishers have worked long and hard to convince people that
there is only one way to look at the issue.
When software publishers talk about ``enforcing'' their ``rights'' or
``stopping piracy'', what they actually \emph{say} is secondary. The real
message of these statements is in the unstated assumptions they take
for granted; the public is supposed to accept them uncritically. So
let's examine them.
One assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable
natural right to own software and thus have power over all its users.
(If this were a natural right, then no matter how much harm it does to
the public, we could not object.) Interestingly, the US Constitution
and legal tradition reject this view; copyright is not a natural
right, but an artificial government-imposed monopoly that limits the
users' natural right to copy.
Another unstated assumption is that the only important thing about
software is what jobs it allows you to do---that we computer users
should not care what kind of society we are allowed to have.
A third assumption is that we would have no usable software (or, would
never have a program to do this or that particular job) if we did not
offer a company power over the users of the program. This assumption
may have seemed plausible, before the free software movement
demonstrated that we can make plenty of useful software without
putting chains on it.
If we decline to accept these assumptions, and judge these issues
based on ordinary common-sense morality while placing the users first,
we arrive at very different conclusions. Computer users should be free
to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software,
because helping other people is the basis of society.
There is no room here for an extensive statement of the reasoning
behind this conclusion, so I refer the reader to the web page,
\url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html}.
\section{A stark moral choice}
With my community gone, to continue as before was impossible. Instead,
I faced a stark moral choice.
The easy choice was to join the proprietary software world, signing
nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker.
Most likely I would also be developing software that was released
under nondisclosure agreements, thus adding to the pressure on other
people to betray their fellows too.
I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing
code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on
years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life
making the world a worse place.
I had already experienced being on the receiving end of a
nondisclosure agreement, when someone refused to give me and the MIT
AI lab the source code for the control program for our printer. (The
lack of certain features in this program made use of the printer
extremely frustrating.) So I could not tell myself that nondisclosure
agreements were innocent. I was very angry when he refused to share
with us; I could not turn around and do the same thing to everyone
else.
\end{document}
DFS
> That reveals another problem with MS's design: you cannot install 2
> versions of the same software on the same machine. They can't
> coexist, because they fight each other for resources (such as file
> namespace, registry namespace). So, every "upgrade" has to inevitably
> remove the old version. Everyone who understands _version control_
> know why it is important to be able to keep older versions. It
> applies also to managing installed software packages: older versions
> of a software need to be kept around on a production system, so that
> there is the possibility of rolling back to the older but working
> versions just in case. The migration to the new version can then be
> done step by step -- confidently. MS can never imagine that.
Do they issue certificates of "I hereby declare <Linux bozo> to be Ignorant
and Uninformed about Microsoft!" when you embrace Linux?
Depending on the application, of course you can install several versions of
the same MS software on the same machine.
I used to have Access 97, 2000 and 2003 running right here, simultaneously
(I removed 97, but 2000 and 2003
still run fine together - in fact, the default file format is the same).
Right now I have Windows Media Player 6.4 and 9.0 on my system.
I used to have VB 4 and VB 5 installed together.
SQL Server 2005 can be installed alongside previous versions of SQL Server.
etc
etc
etc
Linønut
> The> Maybe if one installs Cygnus, but there's also 'edlin' and
> The> 'edit', those two top-notch builtin Windows editors.
>
> Does EDLIN still exist in modern Windows? I doubt.
Yes, indeed it does. Just tried it. Takes me wayyy back.
> The> Edlin makes TECO looks intuitive. Edit has a menu, I'll give
> The> it that. :-) It also runs in a console window. Wait...wasn't
> The> Windows supposed to be easy, intuitive, graphical, and
> The> ubiquitous?
>
> Yes, windows (not capitalized) are ubiquitous. Fortunately, they
> aren't as broken as Windows. They can withstand strong wind, heavy
> rain and snow. At least not as brittle as Windows. :)
EDLIN is like TECO, only with a lot of commands missing.
--
Tux rox!
Linønut
> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>>
>> Does EDLIN still exist in modern Windows? I doubt.
>
> Actually it does exist and is even installed by default.
I just edited a small doc with it. I didn't realize how similar (if
crippled) it was to the ed mode of vi.
Actually, in some ways, edlin is preferable to the more recent edit
that's on Windows.
> Must be for the 0.003% of Windows users who need it. Which equates to
> quite a few people.
Always a dig in there somewhere, eh?
--
Tux rox!
Linønut
>>>>>> "Linønut" == Linønut <linøn...@bone.com> writes:
>
> Linønut> Small nit: Used to be able to do Alt-F-O-S-c-c-c to get
> Linønut> to the Word style I'd created to represent code. Or
> Linønut> Alt-F-O-S-h-h to get quickly to the desire header level.
> Linønut> Those shortcuts no longer word.
>
> As far as I can remember, you can activate the style box in the tool
> bar with Ctrl-Shift-S. So, maybe, you could replace that Alt-F-O-S
> with Ctrl-Shift-S.
No. Doesn't work the same. However, that does seem a bit easier than
that stupid Style pane (pain, that is).
> But still, the problem with styles in Word is that they're
> "user-unfriendly". The UI does not encourage you to use them.
> Rather, they discourage the use of style with those clumsy keystrokes
> needed to access them, as well as the unproductive UI for modifying
> the styles.
You can type a TeX style marker faster than you can highlight a bunch of
text, bring up the stupid pane, and find the style you wanted.
> Linønut> Instead, an annoying side pane comes up, and I have to
> Linønut> lift my fingers from the keyboard and move the mouse
> Linønut> cursor, and sometimes the scroll bar. Multiply this by a
> Linønut> hundred, and that's a lot of wasted time and effort.
>
> In other words, the UI discourages the use of styles. What a big
> design mistake. And you still believe in the marketing term
> "user-friendly"?
>
> Linønut> Bigger nit: I did a Microsoft Windows update. Word
> Linønut> stopped making the Update Fields available when the whole
> Linønut> document was selected. I found a workaround. Another
> Linønut> Windows update, and that problem went away. But another
> Linønut> one cropped up -- clicking the number button now always
> Linønut> uses the "a. b. c." style, and the indent is always
> Linønut> inappropriate. Sometimes I have quite a finger dance to
> Linønut> get the numbering and indenting the way it should be.
>
> That reveals another problem with MS's design: you cannot install 2
> versions of the same software on the same machine. They can't
> coexist, because they fight each other for resources (such as file
> namespace, registry namespace). So, every "upgrade" has to inevitably
> remove the old version. Everyone who understands _version control_
> know why it is important to be able to keep older versions. It
> applies also to managing installed software packages: older versions
> of a software need to be kept around on a production system, so that
> there is the possibility of rolling back to the older but working
> versions just in case. The migration to the new version can then be
> done step by step -- confidently. MS can never imagine that.
>
> Compare this with the carefully designed GCC, which not only allows
> multiple versions to be installed on the same machine concurrently,
> but even provides command line options for you to elect which version
> to use. And it defaults to the newest version. Most unix
> applications are designed to be installable completely under some
> specific directory (e.g. /opt/myapp, /usr/local/myapp), indirectly
> making it possible to install multiple versions simultaneously by
> means of using different directory names for installation. They
> various versions can then be invoked from a simple shell-script that
> allows the user to select which version to run. (Thank's to the power
> and expressiveness of unix shell scripts, which make DOS BAT file a
> big big joke.)
Preachin' to the choir, man.
> Linønut> Big nit: Although we haven't been editing quite as large
> Linønut> documents lately (only 200 pages instead of 300 to 500),
> Linønut> Word seems to run out of memory, and then hang
> Linønut> interminably. The memory doesn't get recovered by
> Linønut> exiting Word. A reboot seems to be the only solution.
>
> So scary...
A big pain in the ass.
Microsoft -- enhancing productivity for everybody but *you*.
--
Tux rox!
The Ghost In The Machine
<lqu...@uku.co.uk>
wrote
on 2 Aug 2005 08:22:45 -0700
<1122996165.5...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>:
C:\Windows\System32\EDLIN.EXE
on my work XP system.
It requires a filename, and is as stupid as I remember it. :-)
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.
Jesse F. Hughes
>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
> DFS> But seriously folks... TeX never caught on with the world,
> DFS> now did it?
>
> Heard of AMSTeX? Guess what "AMS" stands for!
You really think DFS knows what the AMS is?
--
"So I speak before a crowd of the damned, cursed to be unloved
throughout time, with only their hatred and bile to comfort them now,
having betrayed what should have been their one true lover:
Mathematics." -- James Harris reaches a bit
DFS
>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>
> >> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
> >> regard.
>
>
> There is no difference between "inside" or "outside the TeX
> environment". They're ASCII text files. You can even edit them with
> <cough> WordPad!
You know what I mean. The source file vs. the final formatted product.
>> Can nobody produce one?
>
> Can't you use googles? It shouldn't be that difficult to invent the
> search phrase "LaTeX tutorial" or "LaTeX sample", should it?
Why would I do that when you can post one that already contains all the
gobbledygook formatting instructions that makes it unusable outside TeX?
Edwards
> Edwards wrote:
>> In article <G7CGe.52$4z...@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>> Edwards wrote:
>>>> In article <u9sGe.34900$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>>> Edwards wrote:
>>>>>> In article <ZS4Ge.33515$Iv5....@fe02.lga>, DFS wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is easy. And it's not as if you keep formatting with OSS apps
>>>>>>> when you save them as text files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <cough> .tex <cough>
>>>>>
>>>>> <choke>app lock-in</choke>
>>>>
>>>> No, it's human readable.
>>>
>>> But basically human-unusable.
>>
>> Absurdly false. Every human that _doesn't_ use a GUI frontend to
>> TeX/LaTeX is "using" the raw format every time they write a document,
>> and quite comfortably. For my money, it's far easier even than HTML.
>> Once you learn
>>
>> \command{text argument to the command}
>>
>> and
>>
>> {\env text in a [formatting] environment}
>>
>> there are few surprises remaining.
>
> I'd have to see a long TeX document with lots of bolding,
> underlining, headers, footers, tables of contents, hyperlinks to
> different parts of the document, bullet points, numbered bullet
> points, shading, date fields, tables, different styles of indenting,
> page breaks, captions below embedded objects, etc. TeX does support
> all that formatting, right?
Right. (To the extent I know what you're talking about anyway:
e.g. does "shading" mean text (\textcolor in the color package) or the
background (pstricks package) or something else?) I would have gone
through the list in what detail I could but Jesse Hughes already beat
me to it. :)
> Word sure does.
Hoo bloody ray, not that I ever claimed otherwise. Unlike some around
here I have never felt a need to spew crap about apps I don't even
use.
>>> Like an OpenOffice document is away from OpenOffice.
>>
>> Or a .doc away from MS Word, no argument there. But it can't sanely
>> be claimed that (say) LaTeX's
>>
>> \section{This is the title of a section}
>>
>> is anywhere in the same ballpark as the mangled gibberish one gets
>> from looking at a raw binary-formatted file (like a .doc).
>
> I agree. It can't be sanely claimed.
>>>> google latex2doc latex2rtf latex2html, in any case.
>>
>> For that matter, I've written little perl scripts to e.g. read in a
>> .tex file, make various modifications to it, and write the output to
>> another .tex file (or in some cases a plain text file with no
>> formatting). I'm no programmer, but because the .tex formatting _is_
>> plain text, such projects are easy. Try doing the equivalent with a
>> .doc and the programming language of your choice _without_
>> implementing something of equivalent complexity to OpenOffice.
>
> Why would you want to write perl programs to process .tex files?
> What was wrong with them in the first place?
LOL, not a thing wrong, thanks for asking. Just handy little tasks
that occasionally need doing, like generating an envelope from a
letter I've written.
Or once every eighteen months or so the dept. secretary will ask
everyone for a list of their recent publications (in plain text, so
she can insert them into some document she's working on; rather than
type them up by hand myself, I have a bib2txt script which gets the
relevant entries from my .bib (bilibliographic database) files,
formats them in a suitable way, and dumps the result to plain text.
Easy for her, easy for me.
Other stuff like that, nothing big or earthshattering, as I said I'm
no programmer. But they're stuff that would be silly to do by hand
when it's so easy to automate it.
> Your mindset is that of a Linux user: hack away just because you can.
Well, and because there's a job that needs doing, don't forget that part.
>> (Yes, I know I mentioned all this before, but all you could muster
>> then was to call me a "spook", whatever that was supposed to mean.
>> Maybe I can get something more substantive this time. ;))
>
> 'spook'? I don't think that was me. Unless you're black...
No, I suspect you meant something more like "spy" -- I made a quip to
the effect that to do the same with a .doc file (i.e. write a program
to modify it without making use of MS Word itself) one would need to
be an openoffice developer or a mole working undercover at Redmond.
But it's not important, just a joke anyway, so never mind.
--
Cheers,
Darrin
The Ghost In The Machine
<nospam@dfs_.com>
wrote
on Tue, 2 Aug 2005 16:37:09 -0400
<VPQHe.1010$c45...@fe05.lga>:
> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>
>> >> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
>> >> regard.
>>
>>> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those
>>> .tex files outside of the TeX environment.
>>
>> There is no difference between "inside" or "outside the TeX
>> environment". They're ASCII text files. You can even edit them with
>> <cough> WordPad!
>
> You know what I mean. The source file vs. the final formatted product.
The final formatted product is hot plastic ink on bleached paper.
You'll probably want to rephrase your comment.
Here's an idea of the process.
[1] Oh, it's in my head! Get it out, get it out!
[2] My fingers move, and having moved, move some more.
[3] Electrical impulses up the wire(s).
[4] Processor sends them to application. Hey, it's a key event!
And for certain keys, that's key.
[5] Words, words, Microsoft Word. [+]
[6] OK, it's now in Microsoft Word format, happily sitting on disk.
[7] Print! Microsoft Word (or NTOSKRNL and others, as per its requests)
reads the disk, or maybe just consults its copy in memory.
[8] Word draws the document. Actually, "drawing" is a misnomer;
GDI is an interface. Whoever's on the other side sees a bunch
of calls that represent text, fonts, colors, etc. [*]
[9] The GDI implementor constructs the printing instructions that are
sent over the wire to the printer. These instructions go
through an API and eventually end up at the parallel printer port
(or, in some cases, a fax machine, serial port, or even a metafile).
[10] The printer interprets these instructions and energizes a
small cylinder in certain spots with a laser. The laser
changes the characteristics of this cylinder.
[11] The paper contacts this cylinder, then powdered ink. The
ink sticks to the paper in some spots, and not in others.
[12] The paper runs through hot rollers, melting the powdered ink.
[13] The eyes see reflected photons bounce off the paper, but not
the ink.
[14] The brain reads the result.
Now, which of these, precisely, is your "final formatted product"? :-)
>
>
>>> Can nobody produce one?
>>
>> Can't you use googles? It shouldn't be that difficult to invent the
>> search phrase "LaTeX tutorial" or "LaTeX sample", should it?
>
> Why would I do that when you can post one that already contains all the
> gobbledygook formatting instructions that makes it unusable outside TeX?
>
And how, precisely, does one read a Word document outside of Windows?
(One answer, of course, is 'vw'; another is OpenOffice. However,
I consider those reverse-engineering. For all we know Microsoft
could twiddle some bits and break them tomorrow. Of course the
next day hackers will have them back up... :-) )
[+] There is a feedback loop here, as the application processes
the keystrokes and updates its screen display. The focus
here, of course, is printing.
[*] This is admittedly an idealization. With all of the new stuff such
as font hints and such there's probably a lot more going on than
this oversimplified explanation. When all else fails, consult
the source -- oh, wait, it's Microsoft; we'll have to consult
either a disassembler (illegal) or a PR dissembler (uninformative)
instead... ;-)
Linønut
> Lee Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> writes:
>
>>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>
>> DFS> But seriously folks... TeX never caught on with the world,
>> DFS> now did it?
>>
>> Heard of AMSTeX? Guess what "AMS" stands for!
>
> You really think DFS knows what the AMS is?
I don't.
--
Tux rox!
Linønut
>> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>>>
>>> Does EDLIN still exist in modern Windows? I doubt.
>>
>> Actually it does exist and is even installed by default.
>>
>> Must be for the 0.003% of Windows users who need it. Which equates to
>> quite a few people.
>>
>
> C:\Windows\System32\EDLIN.EXE
>
> on my work XP system.
>
> It requires a filename, and is as stupid as I remember it. :-)
I worked at a place where that was the editor of choice. The manager
claimed no other editor could handle large files. I edited a 1 Mb MASM
file with it once. Not pleasant paging through it in 32K or 64K
increments.
Plus, their coding convention included using ALL CAPS, even for
comments. A strange place.
--
Tux rox!
Jesse F. Hughes
American Mathematical Society.
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"That's cool for us in Alabama. 'Cause you know, it's either this or
the monster truck rally." -- An Alabaman expresses appreciation for
local repertory theater on NPR
Jesse F. Hughes
> Linønut <linøn...@bone.com> writes:
>
>> Jesse F. Hughes poked his little head through the XP firewall and said:
>>
>>> Lee Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> writes:
>>>
>>>> Heard of AMSTeX? Guess what "AMS" stands for!
>>>
>>> You really think DFS knows what the AMS is?
>>
>> I don't.
>
> American Mathematical Society.
But there's really no reason that you, DFS or the overwhelming
majority of folks *should* know what AMS stands for or what other
American mathematical societies there are. The AMS is very well-known
in academic circles but outside those circles, few people know or care
about them (and few people should know or care).
--
"You got more out of it
than I put into it last night.
Who were you thinking of when were loving last night?"
-- Texas Tornadoes
DFS
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, DFS
> <nospam@dfs_.com>
> wrote
> on Tue, 2 Aug 2005 16:37:09 -0400
> <VPQHe.1010$c45...@fe05.lga>:
>> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>>>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>>
>>> >> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
>>> >> regard.
>>>
>>>> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those
>>>> .tex files outside of the TeX environment.
>>>
>>> There is no difference between "inside" or "outside the
>>> TeX environment". They're ASCII text files. You can even edit
>>> them with <cough> WordPad!
>>
>> You know what I mean. The source file vs. the final formatted
>> product.
>
> The final formatted product is hot plastic ink on bleached paper.
The final formatted product is hot phosphor dots on a glass tube.
> You'll probably want to rephrase your comment.
>
> Here's an idea of the process.
>
> [1] Oh, it's in my head! Get it out, get it out!
Possessed, are we?
> [2] My fingers move, and having moved, move some more.
Easy there big fella.
> [3] Electrical impulses up the wire(s).
You have been reading too many romance novels.
> [4] Processor sends them to application. Hey, it's a key event!
> And for certain keys, that's key.
I like the KeyPress and KeyDown events.
> [5] Words, words, Microsoft Word. [+]
Such an imaginative name.
> [6] OK, it's now in Microsoft Word format, happily sitting on disk.
You chose....well.
> [7] Print! Microsoft Word (or NTOSKRNL and others, as per its
> requests) reads the disk, or maybe just consults its copy in
> memory.
> [8] Word draws the document. Actually, "drawing" is a misnomer;
> GDI is an interface. Whoever's on the other side sees a bunch
> of calls that represent text, fonts, colors, etc. [*]
> [9] The GDI implementor constructs the printing instructions that are
> sent over the wire to the printer. These instructions go
> through an API and eventually end up at the parallel printer port
> (or, in some cases, a fax machine, serial port, or even a
> metafile).
>
> [10] The printer interprets these instructions and energizes a
> small cylinder in certain spots with a laser. The laser
> changes the characteristics of this cylinder.
>
> [11] The paper contacts this cylinder, then powdered ink. The
> ink sticks to the paper in some spots, and not in others.
>
> [12] The paper runs through hot rollers, melting the powdered ink.
>
> [13] The eyes see reflected photons bounce off the paper, but not
> the ink.
>
> [14] The brain reads the result.
>
> Now, which of these, precisely, is your "final formatted product"? :-)
LOL!
Ghost, I think you're a mix of Richard Feynman, Marilyn vos Savant, and an
IDE hard drive.
>>>> Can nobody produce one?
>>>
>>> Can't you use googles? It shouldn't be that difficult to invent
>>> the search phrase "LaTeX tutorial" or "LaTeX sample", should it?
>>
>> Why would I do that when you can post one that already contains all
>> the gobbledygook formatting instructions that makes it unusable
>> outside TeX?
>
> And how, precisely, does one read a Word document outside of Windows?
With great difficulty.
chrisv
>"DFS" <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>
>> Hmmm... aren't you a logician of sorts? Well, your skills seem to have
>> escaped you right here: with great pride you show me a system (LaTeX) that
>> you claim trivially handles various formatting features, then you turn
>> around and deride the usage of those features.
>
>And it does trivially handle those features. Nonetheless, the average
>writer should almost never ask for a page break in a specific
>location.
>
>> And it seems the developer of LaTeX also pays attention to dull details,
>> 'cause he went to the trouble of building support for them.
>
>They are needed for document class developers and on rare occasions by
>us mere mortal users.
I don't get why you guys encourage this Doofus troll. The above is so
obvious. The POS just has to take his cheap shot, even when it's
clear to all that he's lost the argument...
I don't read Doofus much, but I would suppose that the above trolling
tactic of implying that there's a conundrum, where clearly none
exists, is a common one from him.
Jesse F. Hughes
> The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, DFS
>> <nospam@dfs_.com>
>> wrote
>> on Tue, 2 Aug 2005 16:37:09 -0400
>> <VPQHe.1010$c45...@fe05.lga>:
>>> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> >> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
>>>> >> regard.
>>>>
>>>>> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those
>>>>> .tex files outside of the TeX environment.
>>>>
>>>> There is no difference between "inside" or "outside the
>>>> TeX environment". They're ASCII text files. You can even edit
>>>> them with <cough> WordPad!
>>>
>>> You know what I mean. The source file vs. the final formatted
>>> product.
>>
>> The final formatted product is hot plastic ink on bleached paper.
>
> The final formatted product is hot phosphor dots on a glass tube.
You've seen at least two LaTeX source files now. Surely you must
admit that the source files are easily human readable, so that even in
the remarkably unlikely event that LaTeX and all of our dvi, ps and
pdf files go poof, we can still read our source files.
Of course, I can't imagine any time that this will be an issue. I'd
be more worried about my file systems losing support than that I can't
compile my LaTeX files. (And, no, I'm not worried about that either.)
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"[Lancelot] sighed, defeated. 'It is as practical to hurry an acorn
toward treeness as to urge a damsel when her mind is set.'"
-- John Steinbeck, /The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights/
DFS
> You've seen at least two LaTeX source files now. Surely you must
> admit that the source files are easily human readable,
For the most part, yes. Your xy stuff was not, of course. And I still
haven't seen a .tex document with anything more than the simplest
formatting.
> so that even in
> the remarkably unlikely event that LaTeX and all of our dvi, ps and
> pdf files go poof, we can still read our source files.
The whole point is you're still locked into the app to read your 'open' file
format. More so with Word and less so with .tex, but still enough to make
it impossible to reconstruct more complex documents without the original app
(or a clone).
Jesse F. Hughes
> Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
>
>> You've seen at least two LaTeX source files now. Surely you must
>> admit that the source files are easily human readable,
>
> For the most part, yes. Your xy stuff was not, of course. And I still
> haven't seen a .tex document with anything more than the simplest
> formatting.
I told you: glance through my articles and pick a page you want to see
the source code for. If *none* of my articles have the kind of
formatting you're interested in, well, then that kind of formatting is
irrelevant for the kind of publishing I do.
Stop complaining that I haven't shown you what you want to see. Tell
me what the hell you want.
It's not the first time I've suggested it.
>> so that even in
>> the remarkably unlikely event that LaTeX and all of our dvi, ps and
>> pdf files go poof, we can still read our source files.
>
> The whole point is you're still locked into the app to read your
> 'open' file format. More so with Word and less so with .tex, but
> still enough to make it impossible to reconstruct more complex
> documents without the original app (or a clone).
I don't mind being "locked into" an open source project. Anyone that
wishes to write a different compiler for LaTeX source is free to do
so. (In fact, isn't this what has happened? There's emtex, oztex,
etc., but I'm not sure I understand the difference between these
things. Maybe they're just TeX and LaTeX distros.)
One concern about closed source lock-ins is that it is difficult to
write a clone correctly and it takes lots and lots of work. Thus, if
the proprietary vendor falls out of your favor (or the software is no
longer attainable), you're likely screwed. This just isn't a big
concern with open source -- especially not with a very widely used
project like LaTeX[1].
Footnotes:
[1] You scoff at how widely used it is, but for computer science,
mathematics and other scientific journals, it is clearly the standard.
--
Conservative, n:
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished
from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
-- Ambrose Bierce
The Ghost In The Machine
<nospam@dfs_.com>
wrote
<Gd3Ie.3391$Tt6....@fe04.lga>:
> The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, DFS
>> <nospam@dfs_.com>
>> wrote
>> on Tue, 2 Aug 2005 16:37:09 -0400
>> <VPQHe.1010$c45...@fe05.lga>:
>>> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "DFS" == DFS <nospam@dfs_.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> >> There is nothing out there that competes with LaTeX in this
>>>> >> regard.
>>>>
>>>>> I heard it's a good program. I just want to see one of those
>>>>> .tex files outside of the TeX environment.
>>>>
>>>> There is no difference between "inside" or "outside the
>>>> TeX environment". They're ASCII text files. You can even edit
>>>> them with <cough> WordPad!
>>>
>>> You know what I mean. The source file vs. the final formatted
>>> product.
>>
>> The final formatted product is hot plastic ink on bleached paper.
>
> The final formatted product is hot phosphor dots on a glass tube.
The original context revolved around printing. Not that Windows
makes much of a distinction between printing and display, ideally;
that's the entire idea of WYSIWYG.
Unfortunately, it appears Windows has botched it.
>
>
>> You'll probably want to rephrase your comment.
>>
>> Here's an idea of the process.
>>
>> [1] Oh, it's in my head! Get it out, get it out!
>
> Possessed, are we?
Ideas tend to be infectious. :-)
>
>
>> [2] My fingers move, and having moved, move some more.
>
> Easy there big fella.
>
>
>> [3] Electrical impulses up the wire(s).
>
> You have been reading too many romance novels.
>
>
>> [4] Processor sends them to application. Hey, it's a key event!
>> And for certain keys, that's key.
>
> I like the KeyPress and KeyDown events.
>
>
>> [5] Words, words, Microsoft Word. [+]
>
> Such an imaginative name.
>
>
>> [6] OK, it's now in Microsoft Word format, happily sitting on disk.
>
> You chose....well.
At some point I'll have to work out the details on how one
works with a Linux system. It's a little more complicated,
mostly because the printing engine -- CUPS -- does some
things in the interim with Ghostscript. Also, most
applications use dual-system methods; the display uses X
(or a shim layer), but the printing uses Postscript.
>
>
>
>> [7] Print! Microsoft Word (or NTOSKRNL and others, as per its
>> requests) reads the disk, or maybe just consults its copy in
>> memory.
>
>> [8] Word draws the document. Actually, "drawing" is a misnomer;
>> GDI is an interface. Whoever's on the other side sees a bunch
>> of calls that represent text, fonts, colors, etc. [*]
>
>> [9] The GDI implementor constructs the printing instructions that are
>> sent over the wire to the printer. These instructions go
>> through an API and eventually end up at the parallel printer port
>> (or, in some cases, a fax machine, serial port, or even a
>> metafile).
>>
>> [10] The printer interprets these instructions and energizes a
>> small cylinder in certain spots with a laser. The laser
>> changes the characteristics of this cylinder.
>>
>> [11] The paper contacts this cylinder, then powdered ink. The
>> ink sticks to the paper in some spots, and not in others.
>>
>> [12] The paper runs through hot rollers, melting the powdered ink.
>>
>> [13] The eyes see reflected photons bounce off the paper, but not
>> the ink.
>>
>> [14] The brain reads the result.
>>
>> Now, which of these, precisely, is your "final formatted product"? :-)
>
>
> LOL!
>
> Ghost, I think you're a mix of Richard Feynman, Marilyn vos Savant,
> and an IDE hard drive.
Don't forget Wierd Al Yankovich, Pink Floyd, and Einstein. :-)
>
>
>
>>>>> Can nobody produce one?
>>>>
>>>> Can't you use googles? It shouldn't be that difficult to invent
>>>> the search phrase "LaTeX tutorial" or "LaTeX sample", should it?
>>>
>>> Why would I do that when you can post one that already contains all
>>> the gobbledygook formatting instructions that makes it unusable
>>> outside TeX?
>>
>> And how, precisely, does one read a Word document outside of Windows?
>
> With great difficulty.
>
Oh, I dunno:
oowriter worddoc.doc
seems to work for me... :-)
>
>
>
>> (One answer, of course, is 'vw'; another is OpenOffice. However,
>> I consider those reverse-engineering. For all we know Microsoft
>> could twiddle some bits and break them tomorrow. Of course the
>> next day hackers will have them back up... :-) )
>>
>> [+] There is a feedback loop here, as the application processes
>> the keystrokes and updates its screen display. The focus
>> here, of course, is printing.
>>
>> [*] This is admittedly an idealization. With all of the new stuff
>> such as font hints and such there's probably a lot more going on
>> than this oversimplified explanation. When all else fails,
>> consult the source -- oh, wait, it's Microsoft; we'll have to
>> consult either a disassembler (illegal) or a PR dissembler
>> (uninformative) instead... ;-)
>
>
>
Jesse F. Hughes
> I don't mind being "locked into" an open source project. Anyone that
> wishes to write a different compiler for LaTeX source is free to do
> so. (In fact, isn't this what has happened? There's emtex, oztex,
> etc., but I'm not sure I understand the difference between these
> things. Maybe they're just TeX and LaTeX distros.)
>
> One concern about closed source lock-ins is that it is difficult to
> write a clone correctly and it takes lots and lots of work. Thus, if
> the proprietary vendor falls out of your favor (or the software is no
> longer attainable), you're likely screwed. This just isn't a big
> concern with open source -- especially not with a very widely used
> project like LaTeX[1].
More importantly, people pass around postscript and PDF (occasionally
DVI) and not LaTeX source files and there are *tons* of different
viewers for each of these formats.
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"If you hadn't noticed, basically every result I have destroys some
precious belief of mathematicians and they have from what I've gathered
basically gone collectively bonkers." -- James S. Harris