Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:29:03 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> Cc: FreeBSD <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Any working SIP-phone on FreeBSD? Message-ID: <20110620182903.aa056264.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20110620154624.GA89286@guilt.hydra> References: <20110618180326.GA21890@orange.esperance-linux.co.uk> <4DFD01B9.5010807@rawbw.com> <20110618212315.GB21890@orange.esperance-linux.co.uk> <20110619072518.2115dffb@scorpio> <BANLkTikaYJMSrGXynurtRmnqB%2BJLDLBjYA@mail.gmail.com> <20110619112248.7c879c1f@scorpio> <20110619154949.GA84264@guilt.hydra> <20110619123451.4a392bec@scorpio> <20110619173046.GB84720@guilt.hydra> <20110620133617.48643fbc.freebsd@edvax.de> <20110620154624.GA89286@guilt.hydra>
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On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:46:24 -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 01:36:17PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> > You can easily deduct what happens when the table of contents changes,
> > or when the font size changes. Hell, I've even seen people doing two
> > column documents with spaces. SPACEs!!!
>
> For my purposes, that wouldn't be as bad as the converse, sometimes.
I've seen that kind of other typographic aspect,
two column text already, results get really ugly. Just
and whenever you have to imagine you would have to
change page settings, font insert or delete some words.
sizes, attributes or any Very professional. :-)
> I
> sent someone a set of two simple text files last week, each line a label
> and a value separated by ": ". I asked for the values to be edited to be
> correct for the recipient's circumstances (too much to go into to explain
> the particulars, so we'll keep it vague). The idea was that, once I got
> it back, I would use a simple script to pull the data from the file and
> insert it into a hierarchical database, where each file corresponded to a
> different subrecord.
This CSV approach is very handy for automated processing,
I'm using it for various purposes (e. g. technical data
gets calculated from CSV to tables and diagram data, rendered
by gnuplot, and images, tables and values in text are automatically
inserted into the main document; change values -> "recompile"
document -> get new values in _all_ places where needed).
> Yesterday (after sending my previous email to this thread), I got the
> result back. The data had been combined into one MS Word OOXML document
> (.docx). Well, that wouldn't be *too* bad, I suppose, because I could
> just "save as" plain text if it was in the same format, and use tail and
> head to break the data into two files again. Unfortunately, the
> mutilation of data was not so simple. It had been shoved into one page
> per text file's worth of data, arranged in four tables of one column each
> to present a four-column format on the page.
Cool, must be the same kind of person who, when asked to send
a picture image file, puts it into "Powerpoint", copies that
presentation into a "DOC" file, imports that into an "Excel"
table and finally compresses it with RAR, while renaming the
file extension ".PDF". :-)
> I still managed to do everything I needed to do in under twenty minutes,
> but if the data had been left in the plain text, linewise format I had
> sent to this person, I would have been able to do it all in about *two*
> minutes, including the time spent writing the script to grab the data and
> shove it into my database.
Text, pure ASCII text, is _the_ standard format for data
interchange (and I'm not paying attention to EBCDIC on IBM
here). People start realizing this when they can't open their
documents anymore. That's why I like LaTeX for example. It's
pure text. There is a difference between the document one is
working on (semantic document), and the result (typographic
document). But understanding that difference and its many
advantages requires some brain power. :-)
> The thing that most bothered me about all this is the fact that it must
> have taken this person twenty minutes *at least* just to create that
> absurd table-columnar format in the first place, and that's assuming the
> person had some way to automatically place the data in these tables'
> cells, rather than having to cut and paste each datum individually.
In a "funny" way, people seem to have time for this. An example
I've seen is a programmer who's job it is to take the data files
output by a mainframe system (plain text with numbers and text,
usually column-oriented) and manually (!) put it into "Excel"
tables, arrange them, and prepare for printing. It would of
course be much easier to write an output processor for the
mainframe to deliver LaTeX or even OpenOffice XML files, and
she as a programmer would much prefer to do this, but no, the
"big boss" wants it that way. (Note: She is a professional
mainframe PROGRAMMER who spends her time manually arranging
data - this must be very disappointing.)
> So,
> basically, people are so compromised, so brainwashed, so afflicted by
> office suite Stockholm Syndrome, that they will spend between twenty
> minutes and an hour formatting simple text data in a frankly hideous four
> column format when the end result is that I will have to spend another
> twenty minutes undoing all of that to insert the data into a database.
They also do this with "Excel" tables they use as a worse phonebook.
Keep in mind that even with their plentycore processor tenmelonhundred
GHz systems, they treat their PCs as worse typewriters, creating
the ugliest results, assuming this is the "only" thing that exists.
> Yes, this person knew I was going to use a script to put the data into a
> database and throw away the file. Somehow, though, it *never* occurs to
> such people to just leave well enough alone, save everyone some time, and
> do the minimum that needs to be done.
Their scope of observation and attention is artificially narrowed
down. There are other things to pay attention to, like the talking
paperclip, the dog with the newspaper or other "important" things.
It doesn't occur to them that there are things other people can do
with computers that they can't, as they understand theirselves often
as "IT professionals", where "professional" means that they - on
their own! - can switch the PC on on their own and use the mouse.
> . . . and, somehow, social convention tells me it would be rude to let
> this person know (for next time) that everything will be much easier for
> everyone if the data is just left in its original format.
The task "leave it in the original format" would be too complicated
to explain, I think. :-)
Of course, it always depends on where data comes from and where
it goes to. As I said, for automated processing text files are
a very welcome means.
> > It can be even worse, when documents get faxed and retyped and
> > corrected many times. Yes, that really happens, I frequently see this
> > "professional" stuff in action.
>
> Oh, it's even worse than that.
WORSE? Than THAT? I'm expecting...
> My girlfriend had a co-worker not long
> ago who received a Microsoft Office document that the higher-ups wanted
> her to edit and enhance somewhat. She spent ten minutes trying to figure
> out why she was having such a hard time making the needed changes. My
> girlfriend (has a technical, rather than office administrative, job --
> and is thus regarded as a "computer expert" and asked for help with such
> things) was asked for help. After poking at it for a little bit, my
> girlfriend figured out that her co-worker had printed out the document at
> some point (probably for easier reading), then scanned it back in to make
> edits. Obviously, this was not going to work. My girlfriend solved the
> problem by suggesting her co-worker edit the *original* file instead of
> the scanned copy.
>
> This was a Microsoft Office "professional", of course.
Hopefully certified. :-)
Well, I've seen that "solution", too. Receiving, printing, faxing,
scanning, and THEN trying to edit. The picture was imported into
the word processing software.
Let me tell you that it can be worse, I've seen that _once_: The
"professional" user imported the scanned document into an image
processing software, and used _that_ to change some text. Of course,
typesetting the whole thing got really complicated. The result
was saved in JPG format. He took it home, said he needed more
time. At home, he must have done the "safe / re-open" cylcle
many times. When the result was delivered, it was almost grey
because of the compression artefacts, and it looked like someone
would have spilled a bucket of words across the page.
Yes, THAT's reality. :-)
> That pretty much sums it up. Minimal-complexity standards compliant
> formats, flexible tools that each do one thing well, and an environment
> that allows rapid and natural composability of functions (e.g., FreeBSD)
> are the tools of people who want to get things done.
A very good conclusion. With COMPATIBLE files, you can apply ANY
tools you want, while proprietary files (and therefore programs)
limit you in what you can do. You can even loose access to your
files in worst case - while they are THERE.
EFFICIENCY is a very important word here. You can only be efficient
if you (1st) _have_ the proper tools and (2nd) properly _use_ them.
Everything else will be accounted to work time.
> Office suites are the tools of people who want to look busy.
Nice statement, I will keep that in mind. :-)
> Consider
> the stories of major corporations literally banning use of PowerPoint and
> seeing a significant productivity boost.
I've not heared about that, but I think it was a good step. The
use of "Powerpoint" mainly is entertainment (see the .ppt files
floating around in corporate networks, causing "hihi" and "haha"
all over the offices).
--
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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