gEDA-user: Flame about XML (was: Some footprints I tried to create)

[msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Sokolov)]

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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