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

[Steve Meier <smeier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You were wetting your diapers when Unix 7 was new? I was graduating from
highschool. I'll let the creative spelling and typoes of my emails stand
for why I think office suites are very usefull. My overall impression of
this is that I propably won't be influenced by your oppinions.

Thanks,

Steve M.




On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 20:03 +0000, Michael Sokolov 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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