We're talking about DTP frames. They're much more like absolutely positioned DIVs in HTML. You draw your frame, type in your text, and there it is.
That's why they mentioned that it worked more like a DTP package. That's the way that any decent DTP package these days does layout.
Back in the old days on RISC OS (here he goes again...) I used a program called Impression as a Word Processor. It could be basically be called a cut-down DTP package (um, it was really) and it worked this way. Word sucked compared to it even though Impression was a simpler (and smaller) program. Word still sucks compared to it.
I don't really use KWord all that much, preferring LyX for writing documents these days. But seeing as it has a proper layout engine, I might take a look again.
On the subject of file formats, it'd be nice if KWord and AbiWord both used the same file format. I took a cursory look at AbiWord's file format and it looks pretty good. It'd be great if there was a single interchangable file format for them and OpenOffice...
I remember reading a quote from a famous software scientist (I forget who, maybe Turing?) who said (and I paraphrase here) that we shouldn't be teaching our your computer scientists maths, physics, engineering etc, but rather art and biology.
That was David Gelernter, as far as I remember. Everybody here should read his book, 'The Aesthetics of Computing', and all his other work. He has good things to say.
Anybody who's read my posts in the past knows that I'm a big fan of Sophie Wilson.
Sophie is possibly a (partial at least) exception to the prejudice against Transsexuals. She's the original designer of the ARM processor and now a successful executive.
Thankfully, not everybody has to endure that sort of attitude towards what's different. It's a pity most people can't see it that way though.
>> MacOS, I'd feel lost without having directory
>> windows everywhere.
>
> The MacOS does things well too. So did/does the
> Amiga. In fact, my favorite still today is
> the "Bland Old Amiga" file management system.
> It was very simple, yet powerful.
RISC OS does it similarly too. I still resort to using the directory viewer in Windows before using Windows Explorer when I'm using W2K.
The really sweet thing about the way RISC OS did it was that you had all your drives on the Iconbar - everything was just a click away. Combined with drag and drop saving, it was a dream to use.
Are we talking J Average Person like you or I, or are we talking about what human beings are really capable of?
In addition, remember that the system doesn't have to be 'pure'. It can have specialised components which are capable of doing the mathematics quickly.
Um, any such technology is restrained by the surroundng resources. There is *not* an infinite supply of material. There is only a *finite* amount* especially so in any localise area such as this planet.
On other matters, copyright & patents only covers the devices and processes used in a given instance to create a substance, not the substance itself. Patents are breakable, legally, as long as you can find a different method.#
Copyright is a bit more complicated though.
Remember that patents only cover method, not end result. In this regard, they are circumventable.
Ok, I've read the book, and it fills me with a sense of unease. Personally, I don't want a future anything like that on the cards because I know that we'd make an even bigger mess of it than they made in the book - seriously!
The fact is that any evolvable nanotech we create will be capable of adapting to any 'failsafe' we create. They'd become like viruses and bacteria, only more adaptable. The only thing stopping biological entities from dominating is the abundance of other biological entities.
Think about this for a moment before you call me a troll. I have no entention of doing so.
Feel free to ignore me - I don't really care. AI presented what would happen when machines as intelligent as us would be let loose on the world, imagine what would happen if machines which were indescriminately able to reproduce were let loose on the populus?
Chaos, death, and destruction. Seeing as these machines wouldn't know any better..
Yeah, and they were the worst interpreters I've used before. So damned slow! BBC BASIC, which was the second dialect I learned after Commodore BASIC, was much better, much faster. *That* was a proper programming language, one of the few dialects of BASIC that you can actually do real coding in.
It's also an example of a superior platform beating an inferior one. Sophie Wilson is a genius (and a lovely person too), possibly one of the best programmers or chip designers around. When she designed the ARM, she introduced lots of innovations, like predicated instructions. Some of this was to keep the processor simple, hence cheap, and fast. The ARM is still on of the finest architectures out there and if it wasn't for some dumbass mistakes that Acorn made with the BBC Model B, we'd all be using ARM-based machines right now, and a lot better off.
Hmm... R13 holds the pointer to the heap. I programmed in ARM assembly on RISC OS and we allocated our own heaps, as big as we wanted.
> Will I still have to mess around with these blasted code segments?
Hmmm... having never programmed a Palm, I'm not sure what you mean, but the ARM treats memory as being flat, unlike the x86 series. I might be making myself sound like a fool, but if you mean segments as in the way the x86 series treats memory, then I greatly doubt you'll have to worry about that any more.
Where have you been? That limit went out during the transition from the ARM3 to the ARM6 (for those who see that numbering system as being strange, there was no ARM4 or ARM5 and there's a good reason behind that), and that was *ages* ago. The old mode was retained up until recently to allow support for RISC OS which will support 32-bit addressing in the next release.
Yup, that puzzled me too. Somebody using an old Mandrake distro I think? The Mandrake configuration tools are great, the best examples of GTK-based apps I've seen yet.
Variations on the word 'mannequin' have always existed in English. My understanding is that the modern word is a native word derived from the Old English for 'Little Man' rather than an import from Dutch. Still, considering how similar the languages were at that time, it's almost a moot point, really.
Yes, but the thing is, this control was given away. TCP/IP is not *owned* by the US government, it's an open standard. Show respect? Why? I'll show respect for the engineers who created its foundations, but not to a lumbering bureaucracy which attempts to control it. The closest thing to a government which the internet needs is the IETF, noting more.
Slashdot Mirror
We're talking about DTP frames. They're much more like absolutely positioned DIVs in HTML. You draw your frame, type in your text, and there it is.
That's why they mentioned that it worked more like a DTP package. That's the way that any decent DTP package these days does layout.
Back in the old days on RISC OS (here he goes again...) I used a program called Impression as a Word Processor. It could be basically be called a cut-down DTP package (um, it was really) and it worked this way. Word sucked compared to it even though Impression was a simpler (and smaller) program. Word still sucks compared to it.
I don't really use KWord all that much, preferring LyX for writing documents these days. But seeing as it has a proper layout engine, I might take a look again.
On the subject of file formats, it'd be nice if KWord and AbiWord both used the same file format. I took a cursory look at AbiWord's file format and it looks pretty good. It'd be great if there was a single interchangable file format for them and OpenOffice...
>>>
I remember reading a quote from a famous software scientist (I forget who, maybe Turing?) who said (and I paraphrase here) that we shouldn't be teaching our your computer scientists maths, physics, engineering etc, but rather art and biology.
That was David Gelernter, as far as I remember. Everybody here should read his book, 'The Aesthetics of Computing', and all his other work. He has good things to say.
Anybody who's read my posts in the past knows that I'm a big fan of Sophie Wilson.
Sophie is possibly a (partial at least) exception to the prejudice against Transsexuals. She's the original designer of the ARM processor and now a successful executive.
Thankfully, not everybody has to endure that sort of attitude towards what's different. It's a pity most people can't see it that way though.
ROX rocks. It's a clone of the RISC OS filer and the pinboard. I've been meaning to get a copy of it for a while. Thanks for reminding me.
>> MacOS, I'd feel lost without having directory
>> windows everywhere.
>
> The MacOS does things well too. So did/does the
> Amiga. In fact, my favorite still today is
> the "Bland Old Amiga" file management system.
> It was very simple, yet powerful.
RISC OS does it similarly too. I still resort to using the directory viewer in Windows before using Windows Explorer when I'm using W2K.
The really sweet thing about the way RISC OS did it was that you had all your drives on the Iconbar - everything was just a click away. Combined with drag and drop saving, it was a dream to use.
Are we talking J Average Person like you or I, or are we talking about what human beings are really capable of?
In addition, remember that the system doesn't have to be 'pure'. It can have specialised components which are capable of doing the mathematics quickly.
Um, any such technology is restrained by the surroundng resources. There is *not* an infinite supply of material. There is only a *finite* amount* especially so in any localise area such as this planet.
On other matters, copyright & patents only covers the devices and processes used in a given instance to create a substance, not the substance itself. Patents are breakable, legally, as long as you can find a different method.#
Copyright is a bit more complicated though.
Remember that patents only cover method, not end result. In this regard, they are circumventable.
I'm off to sleep...
Prior Art?
Ok, I've read the book, and it fills me with a sense of unease. Personally, I don't want a future anything like that on the cards because I know that we'd make an even bigger mess of it than they made in the book - seriously!
The fact is that any evolvable nanotech we create will be capable of adapting to any 'failsafe' we create. They'd become like viruses and bacteria, only more adaptable. The only thing stopping biological entities from dominating is the abundance of other biological entities.
Think about this for a moment before you call me a troll. I have no entention of doing so.
Including us.
Feel free to ignore me - I don't really care. AI presented what would happen when machines as intelligent as us would be let loose on the world, imagine what would happen if machines which were indescriminately able to reproduce were let loose on the populus?
Chaos, death, and destruction. Seeing as these machines wouldn't know any better..
What fool modded this as 'Redundant'? It's funny!
Pity they were so bloody sluggish.
Yeah, and they were the worst interpreters I've used before. So damned slow! BBC BASIC, which was the second dialect I learned after Commodore BASIC, was much better, much faster. *That* was a proper programming language, one of the few dialects of BASIC that you can actually do real coding in.
It's also an example of a superior platform beating an inferior one. Sophie Wilson is a genius (and a lovely person too), possibly one of the best programmers or chip designers around. When she designed the ARM, she introduced lots of innovations, like predicated instructions. Some of this was to keep the processor simple, hence cheap, and fast. The ARM is still on of the finest architectures out there and if it wasn't for some dumbass mistakes that Acorn made with the BBC Model B, we'd all be using ARM-based machines right now, and a lot better off.
> How big will the heap be next year
Hmm... R13 holds the pointer to the heap. I programmed in ARM assembly on RISC OS and we allocated our own heaps, as big as we wanted.
> Will I still have to mess around with these blasted code segments?
Hmmm... having never programmed a Palm, I'm not sure what you mean, but the ARM treats memory as being flat, unlike the x86 series. I might be making myself sound like a fool, but if you mean segments as in the way the x86 series treats memory, then I greatly doubt you'll have to worry about that any more.
Where have you been? That limit went out during the transition from the ARM3 to the ARM6 (for those who see that numbering system as being strange, there was no ARM4 or ARM5 and there's a good reason behind that), and that was *ages* ago. The old mode was retained up until recently to allow support for RISC OS which will support 32-bit addressing in the next release.
Dude, you're thinking of Scott Adams's braindead parser! Actually, what's Scott Adams up to these days?
Yup, that puzzled me too. Somebody using an old Mandrake distro I think? The Mandrake configuration tools are great, the best examples of GTK-based apps I've seen yet.
Um, didn't you notice that it's been archived? The wee bit of text at the bottom was a bit of a giveaway, y'know.
Good review. I'm just about to bounce down to Waterstone's bookshop to order a copy. It seems just my can of cola.
Variations on the word 'mannequin' have always existed in English. My understanding is that the modern word is a native word derived from the Old English for 'Little Man' rather than an import from Dutch. Still, considering how similar the languages were at that time, it's almost a moot point, really.
Feck it, mod this one as 'redundant'.
No. More properly, it's translated as 'Spirit of the Time(s)'. The word 'geist' is pretty multilayered.
Why does this sound so much like the Planet Earth in Hitchhicker's Guide?...
Yeah, but it's not exactly Erlang, is it? Now *that* rocks.
Yes, but the thing is, this control was given away. TCP/IP is not *owned* by the US government, it's an open standard. Show respect? Why? I'll show respect for the engineers who created its foundations, but not to a lumbering bureaucracy which attempts to control it. The closest thing to a government which the internet needs is the IETF, noting more.