Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 21:55:19 -0800 (PST) From: invalid opcode <coredump@nervosa.com> To: Nate Williams <nate@sri.MT.net> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: To pick a (perl) fight! Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.960313214109.1476A-100000@nervosa.com> In-Reply-To: <199603140434.VAA08632@rocky.sri.MT.net>
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On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Nate Williams wrote: > I can turn to a page on my computer a *LOT* faster than you can switch > to it on your screen. Uhh? Read those lines closer :P > I can also do a quick 'thumb' through the book looking for something a > couple orders of magnitude faster than you can with online books. After That's a matter of if I can type faster than you can find the page. The way you find the page would be to either flip through the book until you see the familiar pages around that section, or you use the index. While that may be all well and good, I can still lexically find it faster than you. For instance, I can leap to the index, click on the correct letter, find the section I need and click on it, boom I'm there. The text is the same, the illustrations are the same. > I've read a book, I remember what I'm looking for, but I don't remember > where it's at. With on-line books, I spend more time looking for things > that are related slowly than I do finding things that are related. That's a matter of subjectiveness and reading style. Other's may do the exact opposite. > I have yet to find a hyper-text book that as useful to me as the > completely random access method I use with books. And, I've found that Well, first off, if we are using random access methods to read the "book", than it would probably be more accurate to call them reference manuals (just a small semi-moot point). Now the fact is, with a robust and efficient, yet simple search engine, I can find the information I need, fast. > Do you agree that a minority of the folks in the world have ISP access? No, I did not mean the world, I meant people who had internet access. Of the people who do have internet access, a significant majority do have web access. There is no reason we cannot provide the html version of the manuals on the local machine anyways. This would effectively eliminate any argue of web access for manuals. But another useful feature of online manuals would be the real-time updating and/or corrections of them. > Would you also agree that a significant minority of folks who program > don't have reliable access to the WEB? Are you telling those folks that > they can't program in Perl since they don't have decent access to the > on-line books? Like I said before, they will be provided with local copies of the html documents. Can I say, you can't install FreeBSD because you might not have access to the online Handbook? No, I cannot, because the handbook is provided locally, as would these. > All of the stuff I use significantly gets printed out. Printing out > Hyper-linked pages is a *pain*, since it requires a *bunch* more work > than it needs to be. Yes, I tend to agree with you there. But that is a limit of the client. One could easliy implement an html-spider -> print client. > The Java tutorial is a good example of a very nicely setup Hyper-linked > document, but once you've gone through it one the links are more of a > hinderance than a help. How are they more of a hinderance? > Again, this is my opinion, but in talking to others I'm finding a lot > more people who agree with me than disagree. The paper-less society > won't happen until you can find a way for me to have the same sort of > speedy random-access ability that I have with a book. (I doubt you'll > find it, but I've learned to never say never.) We already have faster random access than human's can provide. From above, a robust search engine will bring you to your information faster than humanly possible. > Nate == Chris Layne ============================================================= == coredump@nervosa.com ================ http://www.nervosa.com/~coredump ==
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