Really which of the available browsers is able to make decent printouts?
You can be happy, if the printed pages don't have large areas of white because of sidebars that make no sense in a printout. That is of course partly to web sites not providing special print pages (although if the web site designers did it right, they wouldn't need to such pages), but also simple table-less html pages look awful printed.
I know very well that web layout and print layout differ significantly. But that makes downloading a web page and manually tweaking it so it doesn't look printed as ugly as it would unchanged less annoying.
It is indeed important that this is a computer that did this to your character. It was not a DM that fucked you up but probability and random numbers.
Computer roleplaying is completely different from RL roleplaying. We still can't simulate a human good enough to programm a good RPG DM.
NetHack doesn't even try this but it tries to give the player a multitude of options. Every item in the game has several uses and can even interact in different ways. Every monster has something special that is of value or a threat to the player. All this together creates *every time* you start a game a unique game session *without human creativity*. Only through the Random Number Generation mechanism.
Nothing beats paper & pen if you're looking for real RPG. Play that for the real thing.
NetHack isn't really about being hard. It is about surviving situations that the RNG throws at you or you get yourself into by using all options available to you.
There are two things with platypus that stop me from looking further than the examples.
[fsize:24][align:center][noindent]Its syntax is [+b]damn ugly[-b]. Even uglier thany straight [+i]TeX[-i]. And that's really something.[]
Okay, one could maybe get used to it.
But the real no go is that the input files are only ASCII.
WTF? It's 2008 and platypus is written in Java and nevertheless we are expected to using [drq] for " or [a"] for ä or using some special unicode escape mechanisms instead of directly using Unicode?
Right at the moment platypus is nothing more than a lightweight markup language for pdf.
LaTeX is restricted to certain types of print output.
Last time I needed multi format output, LaTeX provided PDF, Postscript, DVI (the more or less "native" output of current LaTeX-compilers) and with minimal work HTML, Text, RTF and Palm-Doc.
Do you maintain a website? XML has been a godsend for those who want to maintain web and print output side by side. By keeping your data in an XML format,
Show me a large website that keeps its data in XML and I show you a slow website.
For large amounts of data you need a database. Although there are now databases that have an xml datatype.
you can use simple XSL stylesheets to generate multiple types of output. See e.g. O'Reilly's XSLT Cookbook for dozens of very real-world examples (it's probably in your library).
"simple XSL stylesheets" LOL
XSL is unfortunately a functional programming language done wrong.
Most XML is parsed with real programming languages and converted to some specific output format.
How would one convert XML to PDF? Obviously not with XSL-FO if you want more than some simple text (Wikipedia has a rather detailed paragraph about its drawbacks).
Moreover the implementations are so lacking that I'll take LaTeXs quirks anytime (which are not that bad at all if you don't force LaTeX to do things it just can't do).
That's just one example of how XML technology has made coding easier. Others I'm sure will point out others.
Well, I thank $god that I don't have to mess around with binary formats generated by bad programmers. It's awful enough what they do to XML.
preview-latex: (almost) WYSIWYG for LaTeX
on
Goodbye Cruel Word
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· Score: 1
Use LaTeX instead of plain TeX, it allows you to concentrate on content without the distraction of presentation.
\section{Sure} % TODO: rewrite this paragraph LaTeX allows you to concentrate on content\footnote{If you are able to ignore all the clutter in your text that makes it illegible.}. There is \emph{no distraction} whatsoever.
Don't blame the tool if you're using the wrong one instead of the one true Editor
P.S.: Don't use TODO comments in LaTeX. The FixMe package is much better.
Just for the record: AmigaBASIC was my first real programming language (LOGO on paper doesn't count).
That you don't know this quote (it's from 1975 BTW) and have been to the university just shows how much CS is a science without respect for its history.
Okay, it came free with the OS, I was young and knew neither something better nor how to program, but this little programs with their circles and squares and music were impressive
This is mostly a reengineering of AmigaOS 3.0. They didn't use the original code.
Although I think AROS is the best way to try to save the OS part of the Amiga. The hardware part with custom chips and cool demos that use them works pretty fine on Emulation but I don't expect that this will give any new impulses.
It is amazing how fast even AROS hosted on Linux is. Especially when you compare Amiga programs side by side to KDE programs. Makes you wonder what those programs do.
The Amiga had a localization similar to gettext. Programs had ARexx ports that are something like DCOP for KDE. It had a clean and fast GUI (okay KDE doesn't have that:). The later GUIs could even be themed.
I find it surprising that he was very thoughtful about starting a software project - there are a lot of abandonden projects out there that don't work good enough and wouldn't exists if the programmer just had looked around if its really needed.
But with naming his project he just used his initial and "mail". A simple google search would have shown him that this is no good name.
When releasing something to the public I try at least to find a name that doesn't collide with existing projects (and certainly not collides with names of projects that are similar in *function*) and if possible are google unique. Helps track the distribution quite a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it bad that I read that just fine, then realized that every word was messed up?
No, you are just a victim of that fake study that claims that you can read scrambled texts as long as the first and last letter doesn't get changed.
If you never heard of that study, you couldn't have read that text without any problems!
Although I would be concerned with his attitude about copyrighted material.
Really which of the available browsers is able to make decent printouts?
You can be happy, if the printed pages don't have large areas of white because of sidebars that make no sense in a printout. That is of course partly to web sites not providing special print pages (although if the web site designers did it right, they wouldn't need to such pages), but also simple table-less html pages look awful printed.
I know very well that web layout and print layout differ significantly. But that makes downloading a web page and manually tweaking it so it doesn't look printed as ugly as it would unchanged less annoying.
It is indeed important that this is a computer that did this to your character. It was not a DM that fucked you up but probability and random numbers.
Computer roleplaying is completely different from RL roleplaying. We still can't simulate a human good enough to programm a good RPG DM.
NetHack doesn't even try this but it tries to give the player a multitude of options. Every item in the game has several uses and can even interact in different ways. Every monster has something special that is of value or a threat to the player. All this together creates *every time* you start a game a unique game session *without human creativity*. Only through the Random Number Generation mechanism.
Nothing beats paper & pen if you're looking for real RPG. Play that for the real thing.
NetHack isn't really about being hard. It is about surviving situations that the RNG throws at you or you get yourself into by using all options available to you.
If you want a punishing NetHack, play Slash'Em :-)
Well, they still answer to bug reports. Sometimes :-)
The last update to the bugs page has been in August.
But what's taking them so long for a new version, nobody knows.
There are two things with platypus that stop me from looking further than the examples.
[fsize:24][align:center][noindent]Its syntax is [+b]damn ugly[-b]. Even uglier thany straight [+i]TeX[-i]. And that's really something.[]
Okay, one could maybe get used to it.
But the real no go is that the input files are only ASCII.
WTF? It's 2008 and platypus is written in Java and nevertheless we are expected to using [drq] for " or [a"] for ä or using some special unicode escape mechanisms instead of directly using Unicode?
Right at the moment platypus is nothing more than a lightweight markup language for pdf.
You want mpm, the MikTeX package manager for unix.
You have not experienced NetHack until you have played it in the original German.
Assembly skills aren't as obsolete as one might think.
The same skills one needs to programm Assembler are needed if one programms virtual machines directly.
Especially Java Bytecode is a good example of this. The Java VM runs Bytecode that is extremely similar to SPARK assembly.
And what about Parrot? It is also programmed with an assembly language.
Last time I needed multi format output, LaTeX provided PDF, Postscript, DVI (the more or less "native" output of current LaTeX-compilers) and with minimal work HTML, Text, RTF and Palm-Doc.
That's just wrong.
TeX4ht does this with "htlatex file.tex".
Additionally it supports outputting DocBook and ODF.
Show me a large website that keeps its data in XML and I show you a slow website.
For large amounts of data you need a database. Although there are now databases that have an xml datatype.
"simple XSL stylesheets" LOL
XSL is unfortunately a functional programming language done wrong.
Most XML is parsed with real programming languages and converted to some specific output format.
How would one convert XML to PDF? Obviously not with XSL-FO if you want more than some simple text (Wikipedia has a rather detailed paragraph about its drawbacks).
Moreover the implementations are so lacking that I'll take LaTeXs quirks anytime (which are not that bad at all if you don't force LaTeX to do things it just can't do).
Well, I thank $god that I don't have to mess around with binary formats generated by bad programmers. It's awful enough what they do to XML.
Don't blame the tool if you're using the wrong one instead of the one true Editor
P.S.: Don't use TODO comments in LaTeX. The FixMe package is much better.
Just for the record: AmigaBASIC was my first real programming language (LOGO on paper doesn't count).
That you don't know this quote (it's from 1975 BTW) and have been to the university just shows how much CS is a science without respect for its history.
That you don't have heard of Edsger W. Dijkstra is shame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra
Tell me, do you consider the GOTO command harmful?
Doesn't the FSF hold the Copyright for GCC? How else could they switch easily from GPLv2 to GPLv3?
At least the direction GPLv3 -> GPLv2 should be open as soon as the FSF realises their "mistake".
But with EGCS there was no big merge. The official GCC branch was closed and EGCS was rebranded as the new official GCC.
AmigaBASIC
Okay, it came free with the OS, I was young and knew neither something better nor how to program, but this little programs with their circles and squares and music were impressive
Please get your facts straight. AmigaOS 1.x was written in BCPL(e.g. dos.library), C(e.g. intuition.library) and Assembler (e.g. exec.library).
For AmigaOS 2.04 everything written in BCPL was rewritten in C.
I don't know exactly how big the assembler part was. Anybody got some valid links for that?
This is mostly a reengineering of AmigaOS 3.0. They didn't use the original code.
Although I think AROS is the best way to try to save the OS part of the Amiga. The hardware part with custom chips and cool demos that use them works pretty fine on Emulation but I don't expect that this will give any new impulses.
It is amazing how fast even AROS hosted on Linux is. Especially when you compare Amiga programs side by side to KDE programs. Makes you wonder what those programs do.
The Amiga had a localization similar to gettext. Programs had ARexx ports that are something like DCOP for KDE. It had a clean and fast GUI (okay KDE doesn't have that :). The later GUIs could even be themed.
I want to thank you for the cool animations you made back then.
They showed what could be done with this wonderful machine and were a great inspiration for a lot of people.
After all these years "The Dream Goes Berserk" still looks good. Thank you.
Yeah, the trackdisk.device was lousy in that way. But for every AmigaOS version there were programms that could stop the clicking.
For 2.0 upwards they were even implemented as Commodities
I find it surprising that he was very thoughtful about starting a software project - there are a lot of abandonden projects out there that don't work good enough and wouldn't exists if the programmer just had looked around if its really needed.
But with naming his project he just used his initial and "mail". A simple google search would have shown him that this is no good name.
When releasing something to the public I try at least to find a name that doesn't collide with existing projects (and certainly not collides with names of projects that are similar in *function*) and if possible are google unique. Helps track the distribution quite a bit.
If it wasn't for the Russians, you would be typing that post in german.
Was sind wir froh, dass das nicht passiert ist.
Die meisten Slashdotter kriegen ja nicht einmal einen grammatikalisch korrekten englischen Satz hin.
Let's look at history:
The Nazis did control a sizeable percentage of the world's landmass and could easily have annexed the majority of it had the war gone in their favour.
That idea is as delusional as Hitler was. For Nazi Germany to conquer the world they would have needed a lot of support from Alien Space Bats.
Lemmings also had two mice support in the two player levels.
As did a lot of games back on the Amiga, even PD games.
I remember an Asteroid PD clone where you moved the character with one joystick and with the other joystick you controlled the fire beam.
Was quite an immersive feeling.