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gEDA-user: Re: Flame about XML
I am totaly agree with Michael's view of the world. I'd add my favourite
phrase on this topic: "some time ago, two 8bit MCUs @1MHz were enough to set a
satellite into its orbit. Nowdays, a 3GHz CPU is not enough to load an office
suit. Something went wrong."
I too am against XML.
Michael Sokolov <msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Steve Meier <smeier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I really am interested in why or why not going with XML?
>
> How would I use XML with punched cards or paper tape?
>
>> So a few more details would be nice.
>
> OK, here are a few more details about me for you to mull over. I have
> been called things like "Neo-Amish" or "Techno-Luddite". I am
> fundamentally and totally against all forms of modern technology. I do
> not have a personal computer and never will, for as one of my heroes Ken
> Olsen has said, "There will never be a need for any individual to have a
> computer in their home." My computer is a mainframe housed in an
> underground bunker which I access remotely from ASCII terminals around
> the world. ASCII text terminals in 80 columns of course.
>
> Well, OK, it is not truly a mainframe in the IPM EBCDIC sense, it's a
> UNIX system, but I call it a mainframe because I use it in the
> centralised computing access-through-terminals paradigm. It runs my own
> version of UNIX (4.3BSD-Quasijarus) which is very very close in both
> spirit and code to the original PDP-11 UNIX Version 7. (The hardware
> platform is based on a VAX CPU, but it has been put together
> specifically to run 4.3BSD-Quasijarus. It has never run VMS or any
> other OS.)
>
> I fully and totally embrace the computing philosophy and world view of
> the 1970s that has produced my OS of choice. I worship ed, sed, awk and
> m4. No Perl, no Python, no XML, none of those latter-day abominations.
>
> It is all a conscientious choice. I can't stress this point enough. I
> was wetting diapers and sucking my mom's breasts when UNIX Version 7 was
> current, so it is not like that was my first computing platform and I
> then never evolved. I have used DOS and Windows 3.1 in the past (so
> long ago though that it's basically a past life), and even that
> abomination called Micro$oft Word (for DOS), all before I had discovered
> UNIX. Now regarding my choice of UNIX. My first encounter with UNIX
> was in 1995 upon coming to USA with my parents (at age 15.5). My
> decision to forego "modern" UNIX and opt for the V7-like 4.3BSD didn't
> come until around 1998. Obviously a very deliberate and conscientious
> choice; in 1998 there was plenty to choose from: Linux, modern *BSD,
> you name it. But I have chosen the 1970s technology, philosophy and
> paradigm. *HAVE CHOSEN* are the operative words.
>
>> Also, which office suite do you use?
>
> Pen and paper usually, sometimes a manual typewriter.
>
> Seriously though, I have absolutely no need for an office suite.
> Writing papers: 99% of the time I write them in plain text files in vi.
> On those special occasions that call for fancy formatting with non-
> teletype fonts etc. I use troff, a non-WYSIWYG text formatter that takes
> source code in a text formatting programming language on stdin and emits
> PostScript on stdout. (I only use PostScript printers of course, and
> only the large "workhorse" type like HP LaserJet 4Si or 5Si, Digital
> PrintServer series, etc.)
>
> Spreadsheets: no need for them. I do math the way every Soviet kid has
> been taught in elementary school: columnar addition, subtraction and
> multiplication, long division. Works equally well on a piece of paper,
> on the brown chalkboard, or in an ASCII text file in vi. There is also
> dc(1), with or without the bc(1) front end, and the good old TI-85
> calculator for problems complex enough to where messing with the
> calculator is easier than doing the math in my head or a scrap piece of
> paper.
>
> If I ever have a need to get really fancy and need functionality like
> formulas in spreadsheets where one can change inputs and everything
> recalculates automatically, I'll just whip up an awk or m4 script for
> the problem at hand. Need to have the output professionally presented
> along with text etc? No problem, just whip up another script or
> Makefile that takes the math data, combines it with other stuff (cat(1)
> or include directives should do the job) and feeds it into troff.
>
> Think outside the box. You don't need an office suite just because you
> think you need one. People in 1970s did just fine without office
> suites, and so do I. Same for XML.
>
> MS
>
>
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--
Levente
http://web.interware.hu/lekovacs
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