I do not want to discount the danger of global warming, but in this case it does not necessarily have to be the cause. In central Europe in 80's, whole mountain ranges of forests were destroyed by bark beetles after the trees were weakened by acid rain and air polution. I remember when I was growing up, these were places where you could hike all day and never leave the forest. When I went there 10 years later, all I was were barren hills, with no coniferous trees left, and only an occational beech, oak or maple left.
I use PdfLaTeX for pretty much everything, and with a good set of packages and a nice font, it works for me really well most of the time. Two things that I have trouble with are changing margins in the middle of the document, and paragraphs flowing around pictures (the picinpar package works fine for ordinary paragraphs, but breaks lists).
I had the same impression as you about LaTeX3, but recently there appeared to be some development. In the last Tugboat, there was an article on page design in LaTeX3, and I believe there were also some talks about that at TUG 06 in Marrakesh.
I am also eagerly awaiting luaTeX, which seems to be chugging along at similar slow pace. They are suposedly going to release something later this year.
I would at least partially switch to ConTeXt, but what keeps me back is a lack of a good ConTeXt support in Vim. I am a Vim junkie, and editting LaTeX documents using Vim latex-suite is really easy and fast. If there was something like that for ConTeXt, I would probably use it for lot of my documents.
Why is anyone even talking about the opinion of a CEO?
Maybe because, surprising as it may be, part of what he says makes a lot of sense. I completely agree with him that the two proposed "standards" are both complete crap. And I also agree that HTML/CSS combination has, in principle, a lot of merit.
A good portable document format should not have anything about internal representation of the document in the memory, neither it should any specific software, or even a specific version of such software, be mentioned in it. One thing that is great about HTML/CSS in principle is the separation of the content and layout. I agree with you that, mostly for historical reasons, HTML and CSS are currently a horrible vomitous mess, but so are current wordprocessor document formats. Taking HTML/CSS, cleaning it up, fixing some blatant problems and omissions, could very well produce a format that is far superior to both OO's and MS's formats.
People won't write document in HTML/CSS now because there is no good tool that would make it easy. Should there be a wordprocessor like software that encouraged users to create well structured documents and (something Word fails at miserably, and Writer makes only a partially successful attempt) that saved documents in HTML/CSS, I bet people would use it.
HTML and CSS are quite capable of rendering and displaying webpages. What happens with a simple thing like a file header showing page number and author name. Footers with footnotes? How about dealing with table of contents etc. How would a page in a document be broken down? Anyone who's tried to print HTML knows there are many issues with layout. What's sad though is that even HTML and CSS is not supported the same in all browsers.
All of these are problems with browsers, not the actual file format. What's the difference between hjkhkjlh l and \footnote{hjhjklhljk}?
I'm a latex junkie. Latex though is a PITA to create templates and styles for. Someone willing to take up the task to modernize latex or completely replace it?
The M in HTML stands for MARKUP. And it means it. HTML is NOT a layout language. Never has been, and apparently never will be despite unending attempts to use it for page layout. In fact, HTML documents look different in every browser -- which is not, I think, a characteristic that most users are going to desire for a large subset of documentation. How, for example, can you specify a an OCRable form, if the rendering program is free to move the damn boxes around?
I think that's why he says HTML/CSS. HTML takes care of the markup, while CSS supposedly takes care of the layout. I am not absolutely convinced that it actually works, but notice that the basic idea behid LaTeX is exactly that. LaTeX is supposed to be really just a markup language (I know it doesn't actually work that way), and document styles and packages are supposed to specify the layout.
If someone would like to propose an standards based HTLL that focuses on document layout, they have my support. I don't care if it is XML based. Just that it works, is reasonably concise, everyone uses it, and that it replaces PDF as a vehicle for specifying documents that need to be rendered pretty much exactly as the author specified them.
The question is, do we really need to replace PDF? I think the article was about replacing wordprocessor formats, not PDF. They are two very different things.
Well, I know bunch of people who use their computers for pretty important stuff, and most of them probably don't even have anything with the word "office" installed on their boxes. I myself have both MS Office and OpenOffice on my Windows laptop, but only use them for fairly unimportant stuff, like openning stupid memos from our HR department.
OTOH, I can see your point. Before OO came along, I always thought there cannot be anything that sucks more than MS Office, but most of the time, OO manages to do just that.
If I understand the situation in this case, it was not copyright infringement, it was a theft. The point is that the show was not released yet. If you break into my house and steal a manuscript of a book that I am writing, its a theft. Even if you just make a copy a leave the original manuscript behind.
At the moment I publish the book, the situation changes. After that, if you make unauthorized copies, it is merely a copyright infringement, and only if the copies you make are not covered by fair use.
Yeah, most people in such field probably has heard about gmail at some point of time, but most people in such fields usually have their.edu address they are typically rather proud of, and couldn't care less about gmail. The few gmail users I know use gmail because they have some reason to keep their private email separated from their work address.
Actually, if you really use mbox format, you will have all your mail in one file. If you use MH or another folder based format (IMHO better than mbox), you will end up with a folder. Either way, you can bzip2 the file or tar and bzip2 the folder for archiving purposes. And most of standard email clients will be able to access either of them.
I usually don't download mu server software, important system utilities and syatem libraries from random sites on the net. But when you are installing a piece of software you just saw on freshmeat and thought it looked useful, running configure as root is just asking for it. Besides, there is absolutely no reason for it. You don't get any advantage by it, except perhaps for saving few keystrokes. IMHO it is just a very bad habit.
It does. First, it is much easier to check a makefile for suspicious code than a configure script. Second, you can always run make -n install to see what is going to happen. Good luck trying to figure out what exactly is your typical configure script going to do. There is no reason you cannot run configure && make as regular user, and then switch to root and run make install, after making sure nothing suspicious is going to happen. If I install software from untrusted sources (something I just heard of on freshmeat and downloaded from some random website), that's what I do. Running configure as root is unnecessry and IMHO it is asking for trouble.
First, as other pointed out, when creating packages, you don't have to run make install as root. Second, checking a makefile is usually much easier than checking a configure script. If I wanted to hide some nasty code, configure script is one of the easiest places to put it.
Sure, but AFAIK pretty much any unix or unix like system by default assumes that you will run "make install" as root. While I was thinking several times about chowning the entire/usr/local tree to a special user and running "make install" as that user rather than root, it would still not prevent everything, and the process just seemed as too much of a PITA for a low profile home system.
What other options are there? Are there any systems that do something like that by default?
That's true. For years, I didn't have a computer at home. I used an old Informer terminal, that was VT-320 compatible. I hooked it up to a modem and had it auto dial the university dialup server, and automatically telnet to the department server. It worked like a charm, and it did have some graphics capability. There was even a dvi viewer for it. The whole setup cost me $50 for the modem, I got the terminal for free from a friend who found it in the physics department next to a garbage bin. He grabbed it out of curiosity, but did not have any use for it.
If I need to add a piece of software, I can't do it on a thin client, I have to go back through IT which might only take a few days (still too long) but can also take significantly longer.
I got through grad school using pretty much exclusively thin clients, pretty much every application short of the OS itself I used was installed by me in my home directory, including windows manager (for some reason Solaris came with an ancient version of fvwm), terminal emulator (no rxvt on Solaris at that time, only xterm), text editor etc.
Apples and oranges. Word documents are like source code - editable, and consisting more of instructions than hard layout; and every version of Word introduces new features that affect that layout. DVI files are output-only - not designed to be editable, and consisting solely of instructions on exactly where to lay things out; and TeX has not changed, apart from bug fixes, since the 1980s. The two cases have so little in common that the very fact you consider them comparable merely betrays your ignorance.
I was not comparing the two. I am perfectly aware of the difference between them. I have been a TeX user since 1980's and I still use TeX for nearly all of my typesetting needs. I was just merely pointing out that it is not as impossible to get a document to print on different printers without reformating as many people in this discussion imply. The reason Word changes formating every time you change your printer is not because it is impossible to do it otherwise, but because MS simply did not try to do it otherwise. It was never a priority for them.
Because a Word document is conceptually a text document with markup describing how the layout is to be performed, not a layout document in which every single dot and curve is positioned precisely on the page.
Exactly! However, that does not explain several things. First, if the document only contains the text and instructions how the layout is to be performed, why does word ask me to save a file after I printed it, even though I did not do any changes? Second, a TeX document is also just a text file with instruction describing how the layout is to be performed. Yet TeX manages to create the exact same layout every time, no matter what printer you use. Why can't Word do the same? Finally, it wouldn't actually matter very much to me, I sometimes use formats that are even more sensitive to things like size of a page etc, for example html. If the document is well structured, the actual page dimensions, line breaks etc should not matter most of the time. The problem is that Word makes it somehow very difficult to create well structured documents. Almost everybody I know does things like using tabs in place of indentation, braking lines in the midle of a paragraph, bunch of empty lines to create a space between paragraphs, and so on. The result looks fine on their screen, but once they change their printer, or give the document to someone else, it looks like garbage.
Er, no, actually they licensed Arial from Monotype, and had its metrics adjusted to be compatible with Helvetica's metrics precisely to improve cross-platform compatibility.
Yes, but they did it so they don't have to licence Helvetica.
The interesting thing about this is that if if you try this in word, it will not reformat the document. Instead, it tells you that part of the document is outside printable page, and offers you to cancel printing. If you print anyway, it will happily chop off parts of the text. Adobe reader, in comparison, will not warn you, but you can set it to either chop off the text, or to shrink the pages so they will fit into the margins. If you set it that way, some documents may come out slightly scaled down, but other than that, they will print on all printers the same.
Device independence has been figured out decades ago, tex was able to produce dvi files that printed the same on wide variety of printers back in 1980's. Microsoft really has no excuse for this. To those who blame it on font licenses, explain me why this happens even if you only use very basic fonts that MS supplies with Windows. They have complete controll of the licenses here. Heck, they even "designed" that crappy arial, just so they wouldn't have to trouble themselves with licensing Helvetica.
That looks extremely interesting, especially the Power Convert. Unfortunately, the link to Power Convert requires an authetication.
Speaking about LaTeX, I am surprised that nobody created a thin frontend for LyX. LyX is a great piece of software, but one shortcoming ot it is that it is a bear to install, you need a complete TeX installation, plus bunch of other tools, in order to use LyX. If somebody figured a way how to keep all this stuff on a server, and just install a small frontend on a user's computer, I bet lots of people would be interested. For example, a company could maintain one LyX server, with thwir own corporate layouts and packages, and each user would just run the thin client.
Actually, all publicly available maps in the eastern block were indeed deliberately distorted. The way it was done was they would cut the original map into many squares, shifted and twisted each square a little, and then drew a map over that so that all the lines would be connected again, without any obvious "jaggies". Areas near important military installations were simply completely made up, with nonexistant hills, with rivers and streams moved arround and changing directions etc. If you were for example a geologist and needed a correct map for your work, you had to have a special government permit to obtain so called "special" maps.
Slashdot Mirror
I do not want to discount the danger of global warming, but in this case it does not necessarily have to be the cause. In central Europe in 80's, whole mountain ranges of forests were destroyed by bark beetles after the trees were weakened by acid rain and air polution. I remember when I was growing up, these were places where you could hike all day and never leave the forest. When I went there 10 years later, all I was were barren hills, with no coniferous trees left, and only an occational beech, oak or maple left.
I use PdfLaTeX for pretty much everything, and with a good set of packages and a nice font, it works for me really well most of the time. Two things that I have trouble with are changing margins in the middle of the document, and paragraphs flowing around pictures (the picinpar package works fine for ordinary paragraphs, but breaks lists).
I had the same impression as you about LaTeX3, but recently there appeared to be some development. In the last Tugboat, there was an article on page design in LaTeX3, and I believe there were also some talks about that at TUG 06 in Marrakesh.
I am also eagerly awaiting luaTeX, which seems to be chugging along at similar slow pace. They are suposedly going to release something later this year.
I would at least partially switch to ConTeXt, but what keeps me back is a lack of a good ConTeXt support in Vim. I am a Vim junkie, and editting LaTeX documents using Vim latex-suite is really easy and fast. If there was something like that for ConTeXt, I would probably use it for lot of my documents.
Why is anyone even talking about the opinion of a CEO?
Maybe because, surprising as it may be, part of what he says makes a lot of sense. I completely agree with him that the two proposed "standards" are both complete crap. And I also agree that HTML/CSS combination has, in principle, a lot of merit.
A good portable document format should not have anything about internal representation of the document in the memory, neither it should any specific software, or even a specific version of such software, be mentioned in it. One thing that is great about HTML/CSS in principle is the separation of the content and layout. I agree with you that, mostly for historical reasons, HTML and CSS are currently a horrible vomitous mess, but so are current wordprocessor document formats. Taking HTML/CSS, cleaning it up, fixing some blatant problems and omissions, could very well produce a format that is far superior to both OO's and MS's formats.
People won't write document in HTML/CSS now because there is no good tool that would make it easy. Should there be a wordprocessor like software that encouraged users to create well structured documents and (something Word fails at miserably, and Writer makes only a partially successful attempt) that saved documents in HTML/CSS, I bet people would use it.
All of these are problems with browsers, not the actual file format. What's the difference between hjkhkjlh l and \footnote{hjhjklhljk}?
http://www.latex-project.org/latex3.html
There isn't actually any inherent reason in ConTeXt that would prevent it from doing that. It just that the tools have not been created yet.
I think that's why he says HTML/CSS. HTML takes care of the markup, while CSS supposedly takes care of the layout. I am not absolutely convinced that it actually works, but notice that the basic idea behid LaTeX is exactly that. LaTeX is supposed to be really just a markup language (I know it doesn't actually work that way), and document styles and packages are supposed to specify the layout.
The question is, do we really need to replace PDF? I think the article was about replacing wordprocessor formats, not PDF. They are two very different things.
Well, I know bunch of people who use their computers for pretty important stuff, and most of them probably don't even have anything with the word "office" installed on their boxes. I myself have both MS Office and OpenOffice on my Windows laptop, but only use them for fairly unimportant stuff, like openning stupid memos from our HR department.
OTOH, I can see your point. Before OO came along, I always thought there cannot be anything that sucks more than MS Office, but most of the time, OO manages to do just that.
If I understand the situation in this case, it was not copyright infringement, it was a theft. The point is that the show was not released yet. If you break into my house and steal a manuscript of a book that I am writing, its a theft. Even if you just make a copy a leave the original manuscript behind.
At the moment I publish the book, the situation changes. After that, if you make unauthorized copies, it is merely a copyright infringement, and only if the copies you make are not covered by fair use.
Lack of appreciation or even awareness of the mission of the organization they work for is a disease not limited to University IT departments.
That's funny, when I read this sentence, my first reaction was: that's true, it's usually spread through the entire administration.
Yeah, most people in such field probably has heard about gmail at some point of time, but most people in such fields usually have their .edu address they are typically rather proud of, and couldn't care less about gmail. The few gmail users I know use gmail because they have some reason to keep their private email separated from their work address.
Actually, if you really use mbox format, you will have all your mail in one file. If you use MH or another folder based format (IMHO better than mbox), you will end up with a folder. Either way, you can bzip2 the file or tar and bzip2 the folder for archiving purposes. And most of standard email clients will be able to access either of them.
I usually don't download mu server software, important system utilities and syatem libraries from random sites on the net. But when you are installing a piece of software you just saw on freshmeat and thought it looked useful, running configure as root is just asking for it. Besides, there is absolutely no reason for it. You don't get any advantage by it, except perhaps for saving few keystrokes. IMHO it is just a very bad habit.
It does. First, it is much easier to check a makefile for suspicious code than a configure script. Second, you can always run make -n install to see what is going to happen. Good luck trying to figure out what exactly is your typical configure script going to do. There is no reason you cannot run configure && make as regular user, and then switch to root and run make install, after making sure nothing suspicious is going to happen. If I install software from untrusted sources (something I just heard of on freshmeat and downloaded from some random website), that's what I do. Running configure as root is unnecessry and IMHO it is asking for trouble.
First, as other pointed out, when creating packages, you don't have to run make install as root. Second, checking a makefile is usually much easier than checking a configure script. If I wanted to hide some nasty code, configure script is one of the easiest places to put it.
Sure, but AFAIK pretty much any unix or unix like system by default assumes that you will run "make install" as root. While I was thinking several times about chowning the entire /usr/local tree to a special user and running "make install" as that user rather than root, it would still not prevent everything, and the process just seemed as too much of a PITA for a low profile home system.
What other options are there? Are there any systems that do something like that by default?
Losers: whoever runs "configure" as root.
I was just going to ask what's the difference between a cult and a religion. This is a very good explanation, IMHO.
That's true. For years, I didn't have a computer at home. I used an old Informer terminal, that was VT-320 compatible. I hooked it up to a modem and had it auto dial the university dialup server, and automatically telnet to the department server. It worked like a charm, and it did have some graphics capability. There was even a dvi viewer for it. The whole setup cost me $50 for the modem, I got the terminal for free from a friend who found it in the physics department next to a garbage bin. He grabbed it out of curiosity, but did not have any use for it.
do not use .cs as your country's TLD if you don't want your country to split!
The interesting thing about this is that if if you try this in word, it will not reformat the document. Instead, it tells you that part of the document is outside printable page, and offers you to cancel printing. If you print anyway, it will happily chop off parts of the text. Adobe reader, in comparison, will not warn you, but you can set it to either chop off the text, or to shrink the pages so they will fit into the margins. If you set it that way, some documents may come out slightly scaled down, but other than that, they will print on all printers the same.
Device independence has been figured out decades ago, tex was able to produce dvi files that printed the same on wide variety of printers back in 1980's. Microsoft really has no excuse for this. To those who blame it on font licenses, explain me why this happens even if you only use very basic fonts that MS supplies with Windows. They have complete controll of the licenses here. Heck, they even "designed" that crappy arial, just so they wouldn't have to trouble themselves with licensing Helvetica.
Did you soak the cat in water first?
That looks extremely interesting, especially the Power Convert. Unfortunately, the link to Power Convert requires an authetication.
Speaking about LaTeX, I am surprised that nobody created a thin frontend for LyX. LyX is a great piece of software, but one shortcoming ot it is that it is a bear to install, you need a complete TeX installation, plus bunch of other tools, in order to use LyX. If somebody figured a way how to keep all this stuff on a server, and just install a small frontend on a user's computer, I bet lots of people would be interested. For example, a company could maintain one LyX server, with thwir own corporate layouts and packages, and each user would just run the thin client.
Actually, all publicly available maps in the eastern block were indeed deliberately distorted. The way it was done was they would cut the original map into many squares, shifted and twisted each square a little, and then drew a map over that so that all the lines would be connected again, without any obvious "jaggies". Areas near important military installations were simply completely made up, with nonexistant hills, with rivers and streams moved arround and changing directions etc. If you were for example a geologist and needed a correct map for your work, you had to have a special government permit to obtain so called "special" maps.