This is utter nonsense: a parochial N. American view, not shared by the rest of the world.
UML is of course an acronym: there is nothing inherent in an acronym which says it has to be pronounceable, it's just what it means: the heads of the names (ie the initial or significant letters).
Restricting acronyms to those which read as pronounceable words is a mere pettish foolishness dear to those who should know better, who treat it as a shibboleth by which they dare to judge others. It is a misplaced belief perpetuated by several generations of ignorant educators who know no better than to parrot the mistakes of their own tutors.
Lexicographers are right to record this aberrant and anomalous view of an acronym but this must not be taken as evidence of its truth. Ignore them.
On the contrary, in the right hands English is
an extremely precise language. But programmers and
systems analysts rarely have sufficient
command of it, and are better off using UML, from what I have read of it. The fault in documenting requirements lies with the person doing the documenting, not with the language.
I suspect I'm going to have to learn UML for a project where I'll be analysing and then modeling users' expectations of interfaces and their reaction to them (ie click on X and you get Y, are you surprised|disappointed|resigned and why?). I won't be using it to program from (others may do this), more to use as a tool to show why and how...is that in itself a reasonable expectation?
And no way can I afford Rose...I'll be a *student*. Are there any Open Source implementations?
XML is a markup language for describing the structure and content of text documents (can also be used for data)...nothing whatever to do with style (that's XSL).
XML also has nothing to do with software doc specifically, although that's one common use. My project uses it for making electronic editions of ancient Irish manuscript texts.
Forget Word. LaTeX will unquestionably get you the best quality
if done right (forget all those bad habits and half-truths about TeX you learned before and RAFM; and install the latest version
from the TeX Live CD).
But LaTeX is just as much a non-reprocessable format
as Word. To get multi-format output from a single
master you need to step up one level and use SGML or
XML. You can then use XSL[T] to create plaintext, HTML, and PDF
(direct with FOP or RenderX, or via conversion to LaTeX, which gets you the benefit of decent quality typesetting and a lot of automation). And
you will know that your master text is not likely to be
obsoleted by a manufacturer's whim. If some dumbass publisher or manager still insists on a Word file, open the HTML and Save As...or make a conversion to RTF. You still get the benefit of proper control over the text.
But there is a learning curve: it depends on how much more of this you expect to do.
You seem to be confusing "widely available" with
"open source".
I have converted their document to XML and done them
an XSLT stylesheet to serve it as HTML or convert it
to PostScript and PDF (using LaTeX), and send them a
ZIP file.
Having more information on your Web site for
investors than for customers (eg product info)
is invariably the sign that the company has
had the Kiss of Death from the beancounters.
Always watch for it as an indicator.
IBM's Mimi Jett made a detailed presentation on their concepts for electronic paper at this summer's
TeX Users Group (TUG) Conference at UDel (Newark, DE). Concepts only at this stage, but the fact that they took the trouble to present/consult the typesetting field *before* shipping product indicates they are very serious about it, and from the presentation they have clearly put a lot of research into this.
I just downloaded the RPM for 6.2 and it won't update. Tells me there's a failed dependency on/etc/pam.d/system-auth. Sure enough, that
file is not present...but pam is installed,
and there is zero documentation, so I have no idea
what this file is supposed to do nor why it's not
there.
And their sucky up2date falls flat on its face too.
Great idea, guys: release a patch that fails to install on a standard default installation.
The only seriously outstanding problem with 5.2
was the database...it seemed to be some kind of
interface to pre-existing databases, in that there
was no "Create new schema" or "Create new table"
command anywhere, all it said was you had to point
at an existing dBiii or OLE app...
Did anyone ever manage to actually do anything with it?
I'm waiting for 6 to finish downloading, maybe
this time it will be a real dbms...
<breath class="hold" status="no"/>
Yep. Sucks. I'm running RHL 6.2, and for external reasons can't upgrade to 7.1 yet. So I can't install
KDE 2.2 which contains Kmail 1.3 because it requires 432 gazillion new libraries, and they don't supply a drop-in replacement for the kmail binary to fix the bug. So much for compatibility and upgradability. I just ditched kmail on all machines and started using the mailer inside Mozilla -- but their email import hasn't been written yet...and it looks suspiciously like Moz uses binary-format mail files which is plain ridiculous. So who's got a recommendation for a decent POP mailer...
I had Meccano as a kid; my younger sister had Lego
(which was in those days just bricks and tiles for
houses). Meccano taught you to build with thought:
you had to work out how to make things fit. Lego
just snapped together -- but it popped apart just
as easily, which I think is where it falls down.
Lego is brilliant and I love it, but it's a no-brainer. Meccano is vastly superior as a piece of
engineering, but they are for different purposes.
I used some strips of my daughter's Meccano last month to hold the dishwasher dial and doorclip together
temporarily when the faceplate got cracked (incidentally revealing some truly dickhead "design" from the DW makers:-) I used some bits of her Lego shortly before to make a stand for
an antique SCSI Syquest drive to stack it on top
of a rather narrow-bodied UPS while reorganising
one corner of the study.
Both are excellent, but for serious engineering skills, Meccano is just streets ahead.
I work in the computer center in a university,
in charge of electronic publishing and
computing support for research projects. I have
to pay courses and conferences myself and do them
in my own time (there have been a few
exceptions in the past, but not on any discernable
criteria). Below management level it's different,
I can usually get courses paid for staff without difficulty.
The intriguing thing is in the WSJ report where the
squiggly link pops up a *list* of links. This is a
feature which sounds like HyTime multi-ended links, which have been
implemented for a decade in the Panorama SGML browser (and others). They can be specified in the
XLink syntax of XML, but until now, no mainstream
HTML browser has implemented multi-headed links like this (difficult to understand why not, when they are so obviously useful).
If the EE has finally done something about this,
it's disappointing -- if unsurprising -- that it's
being implemented in a manner which is not user
controllable. Perhaps even MS will consider making the feature addressable by XML authors so that we
can all pop up multi-link lists without having to
resort to acres of Javascript.
DSL may be hit in the USA, but elsewhere ISPs
even screw over dialup customers.
Some 2,000 Irish dialup users of Esat Fusion's "No Limits" ISP service
(unmetered evening and off-peak access) get cut off next week for
"abusing the spirit of the service" by remaining connected for hours
at a time (what was that service called? O yes, "No Limits":-).
This has spawned a new campaign, Ireland OffLine, pressing for better connectivity, flat rates, and -- yes -- DSL:-)
We've looked at this for the college where I work
in the datacenter, but there seems to be a cultural
difference this side of the pond (Ireland).
Most students don't seem to feel drawn to keeping
in touch with their alma mater. Many do, of course, but it still
appears that the
majority get out, get a job, get a life, and don't
look back -- and as we had a history of high levels of state funding until recently, there was no tradition of post-graduation donation to act as a spur. We'd like to offer it, but we need to do
some cultural re-education first.
The problem is, I wouldn't put it past the
scriptmaniacs actually to want Yet Another
Scripting Language using a dead parrot syntax
like Perl or Python.
When are we going to start being able to trust
the Machine to do the donkey-work and let the
programmer do something a little more useful
than creating impenetrable code?
One simple and obvious way which they have missed
is to run a standard parse on submitted pages: if
the pass through without error, add them immediately, else they go into the queue.
That way we would at least get reusable info.
Still doesn't address quality of content directly, but IMHE
those sites which take care of their information
format tend to be the ones taking care of their
information content as well.
The fundamental problem right now is that the
search engines don't give a damn about content quality or format, just raw hit rates.
Don't knock it...it's already the 21st century
here: these could be your great grandchildren:-)
C'mon babe, get those quanta bouncin', we
gotta universe to explore!
///Peter --
XSL: think like a tree, not like a chainsaw
Bear in mind that there are probably many
well-known and respected experts reading/.
who would probably be happy to write in
support of your case, given access to the
facts.
Bear in mind also that you live in one of
the most publicly anal-retentive countries
in the world, where politicians and their
sponsor corporations pay only lip-service
to serious issues like this because the
real votes lie in pandering to the large
numbers of under-informed adults.
Have you tried the school-l and schoolweb-l
mailing lists? These are specifically for
discussing general education matters and internet matters respectively in relation to K-12/Highschool education. Mail me for details: for security the list details are not on the
regular Web interface for LISTSERV lists.
Slashdot Mirror
Where is Daniel Shipstone when you need him?
I'm in the market for a PDA.
A Linux one would be nice.
But not with a crummy resolution and B&W screen.
What were their marketing people smoking?
///Peter
This is utter nonsense: a parochial N. American view, not shared by the rest of the world.
UML is of course an acronym: there is nothing inherent in an acronym which says it has to be pronounceable, it's just what it means: the heads of the names (ie the initial or significant letters).
Restricting acronyms to those which read as pronounceable words is a mere pettish foolishness dear to those who should know better, who treat it as a shibboleth by which they dare to judge others. It is a misplaced belief perpetuated by several generations of ignorant educators who know no better than to parrot the mistakes of their own tutors.
Lexicographers are right to record this aberrant and anomalous view of an acronym but this must not be taken as evidence of its truth. Ignore them.
Web Acronym Database
</Rant>
On the contrary, in the right hands English is
an extremely precise language. But programmers and
systems analysts rarely have sufficient
command of it, and are better off using UML, from what I have read of it. The fault in documenting requirements lies with the person doing the documenting, not with the language.
And no way can I afford Rose...I'll be a *student*. Are there any Open Source implementations?
XML is a markup language for describing the structure and content of text documents (can also be used for data)...nothing whatever to do with style (that's XSL).
XML also has nothing to do with software doc specifically, although that's one common use. My project uses it for making electronic editions of ancient Irish manuscript texts.
But LaTeX is just as much a non-reprocessable format as Word. To get multi-format output from a single master you need to step up one level and use SGML or XML. You can then use XSL[T] to create plaintext, HTML, and PDF (direct with FOP or RenderX, or via conversion to LaTeX, which gets you the benefit of decent quality typesetting and a lot of automation). And you will know that your master text is not likely to be obsoleted by a manufacturer's whim. If some dumbass publisher or manager still insists on a Word file, open the HTML and Save As...or make a conversion to RTF. You still get the benefit of proper control over the text.
But there is a learning curve: it depends on how much more of this you expect to do.
I have converted their document to XML and done them an XSLT stylesheet to serve it as HTML or convert it to PostScript and PDF (using LaTeX), and send them a ZIP file.
I should have said "continually" not "continuously". Of course there is downtime although it's rare apart from being slashdotted :-)
It still seems to be the longest-serving system tho.
///Peter
TeX Users Group (TUG) Conference at UDel (Newark, DE). Concepts only at this stage, but the fact that they took the trouble to present/consult the typesetting field *before* shipping product indicates they are very serious about it, and from the presentation they have clearly put a lot of research into this.
///Peter
I just downloaded the RPM for 6.2 and it won't update. Tells me there's a failed dependency on /etc/pam.d/system-auth. Sure enough, that
file is not present...but pam is installed,
and there is zero documentation, so I have no idea
what this file is supposed to do nor why it's not
there.
And their sucky up2date falls flat on its face too.
Great idea, guys: release a patch that fails to install on a standard default installation.
was the database...it seemed to be some kind of
interface to pre-existing databases, in that there
was no "Create new schema" or "Create new table"
command anywhere, all it said was you had to point
at an existing dBiii or OLE app...
Did anyone ever manage to actually do
anything with it?
I'm waiting for 6 to finish downloading, maybe
this time it will be a real dbms...
<breath class="hold" status="no"/>
///Peter
KDE 2.2 which contains Kmail 1.3 because it requires 432 gazillion new libraries, and they don't supply a drop-in replacement for the kmail binary to fix the bug. So much for compatibility and upgradability. I just ditched kmail on all machines and started using the mailer inside Mozilla -- but their email import hasn't been written yet...and it looks suspiciously like Moz uses binary-format mail files which is plain ridiculous. So who's got a recommendation for a decent POP mailer...
///Peter
Lego is brilliant and I love it, but it's a no-brainer. Meccano is vastly superior as a piece of engineering, but they are for different purposes. I used some strips of my daughter's Meccano last month to hold the dishwasher dial and doorclip together temporarily when the faceplate got cracked (incidentally revealing some truly dickhead "design" from the DW makers :-) I used some bits of her Lego shortly before to make a stand for
an antique SCSI Syquest drive to stack it on top
of a rather narrow-bodied UPS while reorganising
one corner of the study.
Both are excellent, but for serious engineering skills, Meccano is just streets ahead.
///Peter
If the EE has finally done something about this, it's disappointing -- if unsurprising -- that it's being implemented in a manner which is not user controllable. Perhaps even MS will consider making the feature addressable by XML authors so that we can all pop up multi-link lists without having to resort to acres of Javascript.
///Peter
Some 2,000 Irish dialup users of Esat Fusion's "No Limits" ISP service (unmetered evening and off-peak access) get cut off next week for "abusing the spirit of the service" by remaining connected for hours at a time (what was that service called? O yes, "No Limits" :-).
This has spawned a new campaign, Ireland OffLine, pressing for better connectivity, flat rates, and -- yes -- DSL :-)
Most students don't seem to feel drawn to keeping in touch with their alma mater. Many do, of course, but it still appears that the majority get out, get a job, get a life, and don't look back -- and as we had a history of high levels of state funding until recently, there was no tradition of post-graduation donation to act as a spur. We'd like to offer it, but we need to do some cultural re-education first.
///Peter
Now that they're run by beancounters and suits from Marketing, it's probably not surprising that they make elementary mistakes like backing ASP...
///Peter
The problem is, I wouldn't put it past the scriptmaniacs actually to want Yet Another Scripting Language using a dead parrot syntax like Perl or Python.
When are we going to start being able to trust the Machine to do the donkey-work and let the programmer do something a little more useful than creating impenetrable code?
That way we would at least get reusable info. Still doesn't address quality of content directly, but IMHE those sites which take care of their information format tend to be the ones taking care of their information content as well.
The fundamental problem right now is that the search engines don't give a damn about content quality or format, just raw hit rates.
///Peter
C'mon babe, get those quanta bouncin', we gotta universe to explore!
--
XSL: think like a tree, not like a chainsaw
Bear in mind also that you live in one of the most publicly anal-retentive countries in the world, where politicians and their sponsor corporations pay only lip-service to serious issues like this because the real votes lie in pandering to the large numbers of under-informed adults.
Have you tried the school-l and schoolweb-l mailing lists? These are specifically for discussing general education matters and internet matters respectively in relation to K-12/Highschool education. Mail me for details: for security the list details are not on the regular Web interface for LISTSERV lists.