An organization I've become interested in seems to have an ongoing project to mark Project Gutenberg documents up in XML. There are DTD's available, and you can "check out," mark up and submit a text.
My question is: Are there a large number of organizations doing this, and would it be a good use of time? It seems to be an fine way of getting smart at XML while doing some general good.
What you do is take great pains to get their name, their supervisor's name, and any other information they care to give you. Then tell them that you are officially, formally requesting them not to call you any more, and that if they ever do, there's a $500 fine attached.
I have no idea if that's true or not, but it certainly confuses them. And I think we get fewer of these calls since we've started doing it.
The first thing that interested me was that I couldn't get to the site mentioned in the original post. I'm at work, and while I use a perfectly good copy of Internet Explorer at home, our "office standard" here is still Communicator 4.
That page is a little bit akin to the "air rage" incidents that are claiming so much attention. Mindless, misdirected, and wrong, but somehow very understandable. Netscape may well have cleaned up its act. The new version may be the very model of Web compatibility. But I'm suggesting there's an awful lot of anger and frustration lurking Out There in the web development community. In fact, I'm carrying plenty of it around myself. Yes, I've actually got a little snippet of JavaScript to detect and redirect browsers -- so that I can retain a little bit of the control over (static) Web pages that's promised by CSS. And every time I feel I have to use it, I have another Maalox moment.
If it's bad for people of my ilk, what do you suppose it's like for an end-user organization who engages the wrong Web team and ends up hearing something like, "Oh. You didn't specify you wanted it to work with Netscape..." Yes, it has happened.
The Web standards are out there. They're reasonable and workable. Without launching into a huge history lesson, I just hope it's not too late. Internet Explorer has been so easy to work with for such a long time that it may be that their standards become the new de facto ones -- replacing one bad set of proprietary standards with another bad set. And it would be a real shame if that happened just because everybody is so ticked off.
As the mom of a former "math kid," now grown, I'd have to say the most important issues aren't the technical ones. His gifted mind will absorb whatever he's interested in, and you'll just need to stand back and be amazed. What is important is to allow him to be a nine year old. Let him play video games and street hockey. Let him hang around with the other Nines. Make sure he knows how to throw a baseball and shoot a basket. Be certain he reads novels according to his age and interest. In a couple of years, when his voice deepens and the whiskers begin to sprout -- and the feelings get all bargled up -- be certain he's with some friends who are experiencing the same thing. What you're after here is not about developing a prodigy. It's about helping a gifted young person to develop normally until he reaches his full potential.
I don't know if their color capabilities are still superior or not. I do know that I'm starting some Web design/development classes at a local fine-arts college that carries some national prestige. Everything they do, teach, or think that's related to computers is done on the Mac, and they have several labs full of them. So I'm headed out to buy one.
I guess I'll find out soon eough which platform is better for all those high-end Adobe packages... I just hope I don't run out of money first.
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My question is a practical one for Michael Hart:
An organization I've become interested in seems to have an ongoing project to mark Project Gutenberg documents up in XML. There are DTD's available, and you can "check out," mark up and submit a text.
My question is: Are there a large number of organizations doing this, and would it be a good use of time? It seems to be an fine way of getting smart at XML while doing some general good.
Thanks.
Ah. You've got it somewhat wrong.
What you do is take great pains to get their name, their supervisor's name, and any other information they care to give you. Then tell them that you are officially, formally requesting them not to call you any more, and that if they ever do, there's a $500 fine attached.
I have no idea if that's true or not, but it certainly confuses them. And I think we get fewer of these calls since we've started doing it.
The first thing that interested me was that I couldn't get to the site mentioned in the original post. I'm at work, and while I use a perfectly good copy of Internet Explorer at home, our "office standard" here is still Communicator 4.
That page is a little bit akin to the "air rage" incidents that are claiming so much attention. Mindless, misdirected, and wrong, but somehow very understandable. Netscape may well have cleaned up its act. The new version may be the very model of Web compatibility. But I'm suggesting there's an awful lot of anger and frustration lurking Out There in the web development community. In fact, I'm carrying plenty of it around myself. Yes, I've actually got a little snippet of JavaScript to detect and redirect browsers -- so that I can retain a little bit of the control over (static) Web pages that's promised by CSS. And every time I feel I have to use it, I have another Maalox moment.
If it's bad for people of my ilk, what do you suppose it's like for an end-user organization who engages the wrong Web team and ends up hearing something like, "Oh. You didn't specify you wanted it to work with Netscape..." Yes, it has happened.
The Web standards are out there. They're reasonable and workable. Without launching into a huge history lesson, I just hope it's not too late. Internet Explorer has been so easy to work with for such a long time that it may be that their standards become the new de facto ones -- replacing one bad set of proprietary standards with another bad set. And it would be a real shame if that happened just because everybody is so ticked off.
As the mom of a former "math kid," now grown, I'd have to say the most important issues aren't the technical ones. His gifted mind will absorb whatever he's interested in, and you'll just need to stand back and be amazed. What is important is to allow him to be a nine year old. Let him play video games and street hockey. Let him hang around with the other Nines. Make sure he knows how to throw a baseball and shoot a basket. Be certain he reads novels according to his age and interest. In a couple of years, when his voice deepens and the whiskers begin to sprout -- and the feelings get all bargled up -- be certain he's with some friends who are experiencing the same thing. What you're after here is not about developing a prodigy. It's about helping a gifted young person to develop normally until he reaches his full potential.
I don't know if their color capabilities are still superior or not. I do know that I'm starting some Web design/development classes at a local fine-arts college that carries some national prestige. Everything they do, teach, or think that's related to computers is done on the Mac, and they have several labs full of them. So I'm headed out to buy one.
I guess I'll find out soon eough which platform is better for all those high-end Adobe packages... I just hope I don't run out of money first.