From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Dec 14 01:20:36 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA00546 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Mon, 14 Dec 1998 01:20:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from phoenix.welearn.com.au (suebla.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.44.81]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA00511 for ; Mon, 14 Dec 1998 01:20:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sue@phoenix.welearn.com.au) Received: (from sue@localhost) by phoenix.welearn.com.au (8.9.1/8.9.0) id UAA01113; Mon, 14 Dec 1998 20:19:57 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: <19981214201953.52678@welearn.com.au> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 20:19:53 +1100 From: Sue Blake To: "Jason C. Wells" Cc: FreeBSD-chat , Ken Keeler Subject: Re: Smaller, Dedicated tools and Greg's Daemon News Article References: <19981214083023.C2587@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.88e In-Reply-To: ; from Jason C. Wells on Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 11:29:40PM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 11:29:40PM -0800, Jason C. Wells wrote: > I spent the entire weekend doing battle with Microsoft products. We > produced a 400 page report using the bastard Word 97. Easily 20 full man > hours were spent trying to figure why there were big red X's where > pictures used to be and recovering files that were corrupted during > crashes. We could not put together more than 20MB/200 pages of text before > complete instability occured. > > What a horrible waste of time. > > Oh yeah, don't forget that little paper clip sucker in the right corner. > Good thing I didn't have my gun. I'da shot the futhermocker right in his > litte winky eye. > > Imagine trying to put together "The Complete FreeBSD" in this environment. > > The point is, I know how well small dedicated tools work. I haven't > learned the text editing tools because I was never motivated to do so. > > A recent email chat combined with Greg's article have completely convinced > me that I should learn a little bit more programming in order to make my > life easier. > > Emacs, Tex, here I come! Greg will scowl from his perch, but even the simplest programming is beyond me at the moment. There are other ways, though. First a tale of woe. About three years ago I was asked to edit and prepare a large highly structured document in Word, which was to be saved in various formats (word processors on different platforms, HTML, PDF) for distribution on CD mainly to mac users. The microsoft addicts with the money naturally wanted to be able to maintain it on their own if I disappear, and the only thing they do with computers is Word. The last additions were about to arrive, and the preparation for the CD was due to be complete in 2 weeks, so they paid me in advance. NEVER take money in advance!! After years of a few new words here and there every couple of months, during which time I swore off mickeysoft except for a small partition for this job, the final changes came through last week. The final final changes, they insist. I insist too. To boot NT, apart from losing the use of my best machine, I have to get into the CMOS and hide some disks. Boring. So a while ago I saved the damn thing as RTF, extracted the common ground from a bunch of different RTF specs and word processor interpretations of them, cleaned the RTF code of redundancies (greatly reducing the file size and increasing platform independence) and dragged it onto my 386. There I'm maintaining it with ed, sed, joe, and rcs. Ispell conveniently ignores the RTF bits if you tell it it's TeX. Now when they reckon a prior change has been lost or unapproved I can trace it back. I still have to go into NT one more time to produce the word-processor-native versions and build a fancy PDF with links and notes, but then it'll be over. Meanwhile the RTF file is always available to them by ftp even as I work on it, they can use it without any conversion on their win and mac machines, and I get to use tools that are so efficient that they don't even interfere with the web/ftp/mail/dns/etc that the 386 is serving at the same time. (By contrast, the office had to upgrade their 486s ages ago when they couldn't cope with Win3.1/Word6) I've been able to use a text editor to write letters in RTF on their behalf, email them to the mac office for printing and posting and to the win head office for approval and archiving. It's not about programming at all. It's about cutting through the bullshit to find the most sensible approach while respecting the more restricted choices of others. And if you treat it as religion you'll always risk being half blind to the possibilities. Religions restrict the mind and destroy those who want to consider other options. If programming is your tool, great, but there's plenty of scope for the non-programmers here too. Similarly, there's a lot of people out there who don't want to know about computers and shouldn't have to just to type a document or look at a web page. Unlike the commercial monopolies, I believe there's room for all of us if only we can rise above the gut reactions of preaching and running scared. -- Regards, -*Sue*- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message