It wasn't long ago that Physics was THE subject to study if you wanted to work in Computing. It's still a pretty good background to have.
Having said that, I think what really counts isn't your major at all, but how much work experience you get while you're studying. Physics can be great that way because it often involves quite a lot of programming and computer management, not because the subject is inherently useful.
1) The really big argument isn't about the best way to send formatted messages. Most of the stuff I get this way doesn't NEED to be formatted in the first place. Just get people to type their messages without the formatting rubbish. It'll save them typing time and save us reading time.
2) People will keep using.doc format because they think it does the job. The best way to get them to stop is to simply point out that their Word messages aren't working, and skip the extra baggage about GNU. Let them decide whether the best solution is to send XML or HTML or simply not bother with the complex formatting in the first place.
3) After that people are still going to use.doc for lots of stuff, because there often isn't a realistic alternative. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for free software; I installed a Linux system for some friends and showed them how they could see those.doc files in StarOffice, and they were happy about that because they couldn't open those files in Word 97. I've seen all the postings saying "90% of XP files are readable in 97". 90% isn't all of them and that difference seems to be enough to annoy some people.
When it comes to re-writing messy code, I'm curious why so many people who should know better have to be taught what must be one of the oldest lessons in technology:
"If it's not broken, don't fix it".
That seems to say much the same thing you did, more succinctly. I guess, judging from the silly flames about asc(chr(x)) that it must be very much an emotional thing, as you suggested...
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It wasn't long ago that Physics was THE subject to study if you wanted to work in Computing. It's still a pretty good background to have.
Having said that, I think what really counts isn't your major at all, but how much work experience you get while you're studying. Physics can be great that way because it often involves quite a lot of programming and computer management, not because the subject is inherently useful.
Will we be able to run it on XFree86 4.2 by then? It'd be nice to make the upgrade a REALLY clean one.
1) The really big argument isn't about the best way to send formatted messages. Most of the stuff I get this way doesn't NEED to be formatted in the first place. Just get people to type their messages without the formatting rubbish. It'll save them typing time and save us reading time.
.doc format because they think it does the job. The best way to get them to stop is to simply point out that their Word messages aren't working, and skip the extra baggage about GNU. Let them decide whether the best solution is to send XML or HTML or simply not bother with the complex formatting in the first place.
.doc for lots of stuff, because there often isn't a realistic alternative. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for free software; I installed a Linux system for some friends and showed them how they could see those .doc files in StarOffice, and they were happy about that because they couldn't open those files in Word 97. I've seen all the postings saying "90% of XP files are readable in 97". 90% isn't all of them and that difference seems to be enough to annoy some people.
2) People will keep using
3) After that people are still going to use
When it comes to re-writing messy code, I'm curious why so many people who should know better have to be taught what must be one of the oldest lessons in technology:
"If it's not broken, don't fix it".
That seems to say much the same thing you did, more succinctly. I guess, judging from the silly flames about asc(chr(x)) that it must be very much an emotional thing, as you suggested...