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Jargons of Info Tech industry

Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb

People in the computing field like to spur the use of spurious jargons.
The less educated they are, the more they like extraneous jargons, such
as in the Unix & Perl community. Unlike mathematicians, where in
mathematics there are no fewer jargons but each and every one are
absolutely necessary. For example, polytope, manifold,
injection/bijection/surjection, group/ring/field.., homological,
projective, pencil, bundle, lattice, affine, topology, isomorphism,
isometry, homeomorphism, aleph-0, fractal, supremum/infimum, simplex,
matrix, quaternions, derivative/integral, ... and so on. Each and every
one of these captures a concept, for which practical and theoretical
considerations made the terms a necessity. Often there are synonyms for
them because of historical developments, but never “jargons for
jargon's sake” because mathematicians hate bloats and irrelevance.

The jargon-soaked stupidity in computing field can be grouped into
classes. First of all, there are jargons for marketing purposes. Thus
you have Mac OS “X”, Windows “XP”, Sun OS to Solaris and the
versioning confusion of 4.x to 7 to 8 and also the so called
“Platform” instead of OS. One flagrant example is Sun Microsystem's
Java stuff. Oak, Java, JDK, JSDK, J2EE, J2SE enterprise edition or no,
from java 1.x to 1.2 == Java 2 now 1.3, JavaOne, JFC, Jini, JavaBeans,
entity Beans, Awk, Swing... fucking stupid Java and fuck Sun
Microsystems. This is just one example of Jargon hodgepodge of one
single commercial entity. Marketing jargons cannot be avoided in modern
society. They abound outside computing field too. The Jargons of
marketing came from business practice, and they can be excusable
because they are kinda a necessity or can be considered as a naturally
evolved strategy for attracting attention in a laissez-faire economy
system.

The other class of jargon stupidity is from computing practitioners, of
which the Unix/Perl community is exemplary. For example, the name Unix
& Perl themselves are good examples of buzzing jargons. Unix is
supposed to be opposed of Multics and hints on the offensive and
tasteless term eunuchs. PERL is cooked up to be “Practical Extraction
& Reporting Language” and for the precise marketing drama of being
also “Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister”. These types of
jargons exudes juvenile humor. Cheesiness and low-taste is their
hall-mark. If you are familiar with unixism and perl programing, you'll
find tons and tons of such jargons embraced and verbalized by unix &
perl lovers. e.g. grep, glob, shell, pipe, man, regex, more, less,
tarball, shebang, Schwartzian Transform, croak, bless, interpolation,
TIMTOWTDI, DWIM, RFC, RTFM, I-ANAL, YMMV and so on.

There is another class of jargon moronicity, which i find them most
damaging to society, are jargons or spurious and vague terms used and
brandished about by programers that we see and hear daily among design
meetings, online tech group postings, or even in lots of computing
textbooks or tutorials. I think the reason for these, is that these
massive body of average programers usually don't have much knowledge of
significant mathematics, yet they are capable of technical thinking
that is not too abstract, thus you ends up with these people defining
or hatching terms a-dime-a-dozen that's vague, context dependent,
vacuous, and their commonality are often a result of sopho-morons
trying to sound big.

Here are some examples of the terms in question:

• anonymous functions or lambda or lamba function
• closure
• exceptions (as in Java)
• list, array, vector, aggregate
• hash (or hash table) ← fantastically stupid
• rehash (as in csh or tcsh)
• regular expression (as in regex, grep, egrep, fgrep)
• name space (as in Scheme vs Common Lisp debates)
• depth first/breadth first (as in tree traversing.)
• operator
• operator overloading
• polymorphism
• inheritance
• first class objects
• pointers, references
• tail recursion

My time is limited, so i'll just give a brief explanation of my thesis
on selective few of these examples among the umpteen.

In a branch of math called lambda calculus, in which much theories of
computation are based on, is the origin of the jargon _lambda function_
that is so frequently reciprocated by advanced programering donkeys. In
practice, a subroutine without side-effects is supposed to be what
“lambda function” means. Functional languages often can define them
without assigning them to some variable (name), therefore the
“function without side-effects” are also called “anonymous
functions”. One can see that these are two distinct concepts. If
mathematicians are designing computer languages, they would probably
just called such thing _pure functions_. The term conveys the meaning,
without the “lamba” abstruseness. (in fact, the mathematics
oriented language Mathematica refers to lambda function as pure
function, with the keyword Function.) Because most programers are
sopho-morons who are less capable of clear thinking but nevertheless
possess human vanity, we can see that they have not adopted the clear
and fitting term, but instead you see lambda function this and that
obfuscations dropping from their mouths constantly.

Now the term “closure” can and indeed have meant several things in
the computing field. The most common is for it to mean a subroutine
that holds some memory but without some disadvantages of modifying a
global variable. Usually such is a feature of a programing language.
When taken to extreme, we have the what's called Object Oriented
Programing methodology and languages. The other meaning of
“closure” i have seen in text books, is for it to indicate that the
things in the language is “closed” under the operations of the
language. For example, for some languages you can apply operations or
subroutines to any thing in the language. (These languages are often
what's called “dynamic typing” or “typeless”). However, in
other languages, things have types and cannot be passed around
subroutines or operators arbitrarily. One can see that the term
“closure” is quite vague in conveying its meaning. The term
nevertheless is very popular among talkative programers and dense
tutorials, precisely because it is vague and mysterious. These
pseudo-wit living zombies, never thought for a moment that they are
using a moronic term, mostly because they never clearly understand the
concepts behind the term among the contexts. One can particular see
this exhibition among Perl programers. (for an example of the
fantastically stupid write-up on closure by the Perl folks, see
“perldoc perlfaq7” and “perldoc perlref”.)

in the so-called “high-level” computing languages, there are often
data types that's some kind of a collection. The most illustrative is
LISt Processing language's lists. Essentially, the essential concept is
that the language can treat a collection of things as if it's a single
entity. As computer languages evolve, such collection entity feature
also diversified, from syntax to semantics to implementation. Thus,
beside lists, there are also terms like vector, array, matrix, tree,
hash/“hash table”/dictionary. Often each particular term isto
convey a particular implementation of collection so that it has certain
properties to facilitate specialized uses of such groupy. The Java
language has such groupy that can illustrate the point well. In Java,
there are these hierarchy of collection-type of things:

Collection
Set (AbstractSet, HashSet)
SortedSet (TreeSet)
List (AbstractList, LinkedList, Vector, ArrayList)

Map (AbstractMap, HashMap, Hashtable)
SortedMap (TreeMap)

The words without parenthesis are Java Interfaces, and ones in are
implementations. The interface hold a concept. The deeper the level,
the more specific or specialized. The implementation carry out
concepts. Different implementation gives different algorithmic
properties. Essentially, these hierarchies of Java show the potential
complexity and confusion around groupy entities in computer languages.
Now, among the programers we see daily, who never really thought out of
these things, will attach their own specific meaning to
list/array/vector/matrix/etc type of jargons in driveling and
arguments, oblivious to any thought of formalizing what the fuck they
are really talking about. (one may think from the above tree-diagram
that Java the language has at least put clear distinction to interface
and implementation, whereas in my opinion they are one fantastic fuck
up too, in many respects.)

---------------------
This post is archived at
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/jargons.html
© Copyright 2002 by Xah Lee.

Xah
xa*@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/

Aug 12 '05 #1
385 16816
Xah Lee wrote:
Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb


Congratulations, this time you managed to get to your second paragraph
before your Tourette's kicked in.

--
Erik Max Francis && ma*@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Behind an able man there are always other able men.
-- (a Chinese proverb)
Aug 12 '05 #2
Hi All--

Erik Max Francis wrote:

Xah Lee wrote:
Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb


Congratulations, this time you managed to get to your second paragraph
before your Tourette's kicked in.


You made it that far? Congratulations. I barely got past the name of
the troll.

Metta,
Ivan
----------------------------------------------
Ivan Van Laningham
God N Locomotive Works
http://www.pauahtun.org/
http://www.foretec.com/python/worksh...oceedings.html
Army Signal Corps: Cu Chi, Class of '70
Author: Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours
Aug 12 '05 #3
Xah Lee wrote:
Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb

People in the computing field like to spur the use of spurious
jargons. The less educated they are, the more they like extraneous

[...]

Just for the records at Google et.al. in case someone stumbles across Xah's
masterpieces in the future:
Xah is very well known as the resident troll in many NGs and his
'contributions' are less then useless.

Best is to just ignore him.

But for heaven's sake unless you want to embarrass yourself really badly
don't take any of his postings serious because he has proven again and again
that he has no clue whatsoever about computer science or programming.

jue
Aug 12 '05 #4
On 11 Aug 2005 18:23:42 -0700, "Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org> wrote or
quoted :
The Jargons of
marketing came from business practice, and they can be excusable
because they are kinda a necessity or can be considered as a naturally
evolved strategy for attracting attention in a laissez-faire economy
system.


Jargon is a name that hides what it does. The idea is those in the
know can sound much more intelligent than they really are.

In Java you have the JDK -- Java Development Kit. That is a pretty
clear name for what it is.

You have the JRE the Java Runtime Environment. I might have shortened
it to Java Base.

Oak, Tiger, Dragonfly etc are internal codenames. They are really
nobody's business but Sun's.
You have JAF -- Java Activation Framework. Now that's jargon. You have
no idea knowing its name what it is for.

JMF Java Media Framework could have been shortened to Java Media.

JavaMail is pretty clear.

Java Web Start is self-explanatory. Perhaps Java Web Launch would be
a tiny bit clearer.

J2EE Java 2 Enterprise Edition. The 2 is a lot of Bullshit. Sun
marketing people keep trying to screw with the logical progression of
version numbers. The edition says nothing, and the Enterprise gives
you a hint this is not for hobbyist programmers.
J2SE Java 2 Standard Edition. This is needlessly wordy. they could
have called it Standard Java.

If you use short names then you don't need acronyms. Without
acronyms, names can be self-explanatory.

I think your beef is not with Jargon, but with so many acronyms.

Aug 12 '05 #5
Roedy Green <lo*****@mindprod.com.invalid> writes:
On 11 Aug 2005 18:23:42 -0700, "Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org> wrote or
quoted : [ the usual nonsense ]
Jargon [...]

[snip]

Take a look at the Newsgroups: line. Then look for other articles Xah
Lee has posted, and see if you can make sense of any of them. If you
must post a followup, at least limit the newsgroups to those where it
might be topical.

+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
================================================== ============

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Aug 12 '05 #6
Xah Lee is a known troll. You are retarded to reply to his drivel.
--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/
Aug 12 '05 #7
Jrgen Exner wrote:
Just for the records at Google et.al. in case someone stumbles across Xah's
masterpieces in the future:
Xah is very well known as the resident troll in many NGs and his
'contributions' are less then useless.
And you are the resident troll-reply service, posting this reply every time?
Best is to just ignore him.
You just broke that rule.
But for heaven's sake unless you want to embarrass yourself really badly
don't take any of his postings serious because he has proven again and again
that he has no clue whatsoever about computer science or programming.


Fine. Many people don't. Whoever takes the time to read Xah's postings
(I don't) will probably be able to find that out by himself.

--
I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
Dogbert
Aug 12 '05 #8
Xah Lee wrote:
[...]
My time is limited, so i'll just give a brief explanation of my thesis
[...]

This is what psychology calls a disordered self-perception.

--
"Thomas:Fritsch$ops:de".replace(':','.').replace(' $','@')

Aug 12 '05 #9

"Jrgen Exner" <ju******@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BATKe.19727$0d.11740@trnddc07...
Xah Lee wrote:
Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb

People in the computing field like to spur the use of spurious
jargons. The less educated they are, the more they like extraneous

[...]

Just for the records at Google et.al. in case someone stumbles across
Xah's
masterpieces in the future:
Xah is very well known as the resident troll in many NGs and his
'contributions' are less then useless.


He sent a lovely one to some of the language groups the other day,
explaining why Jonathan Swift was a poor writer.
Aug 12 '05 #10
> Xah is very well known as the resident troll in many NGs and his
'contributions' are less then useless.

Best is to just ignore him.


Did you know that some deranged people take sexual pleasure out of starting
fires? Apparently some of the latest forest/bush fires in southern Europe
were even started by firemen (with their pants down?).

Maybe characters like Xah take some kind of sexual pleasure out of posting
his kind of posts... the tought doesn't bear thinking, does it?
Aug 12 '05 #11
joe
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"Jrgen Exner" <ju******@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BATKe.19727$0d.11740@trnddc07...
Xah Lee wrote:
Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb

People in the computing field like to spur the use of spurious
jargons. The less educated they are, the more they like extraneous

[...]

Just for the records at Google et.al. in case someone stumbles across
Xah's
masterpieces in the future:
Xah is very well known as the resident troll in many NGs and his
'contributions' are less then useless.


He sent a lovely one to some of the language groups the other day,
explaining why Jonathan Swift was a poor writer.


That's remarkable, considering he doesn't realize "jargon" is a
collective noun.

Joe
Aug 12 '05 #12
jan V wrote:
Did you know that some deranged people take sexual pleasure out of starting
fires? Apparently some of the latest forest/bush fires in southern Europe
were even started by firemen (with their pants down?).


I've only heard of people trying to extinguish fires with their pants
down. Oh well...

--
I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
Dogbert
Aug 12 '05 #13
In comp.lang.perl.misc Xah Lee <xa*@xahlee.org> wrote:
The other class of jargon stupidity is from computing practitioners, of
which the Unix/Perl community is exemplary. For example, the name Unix
& Perl themselves are good examples of buzzing jargons. Unix is
supposed to be opposed of Multics and hints on the offensive and
tasteless term eunuchs.


Now that connexion is a product of a truely warped mind.

Axel

Aug 12 '05 #14
ax**@white-eagle.invalid.uk writes:
In comp.lang.perl.misc Xah Lee <xa*@xahlee.org> wrote:
The other class of jargon stupidity is from computing practitioners, of
which the Unix/Perl community is exemplary. For example, the name Unix
& Perl themselves are good examples of buzzing jargons. Unix is
supposed to be opposed of Multics and hints on the offensive and
tasteless term eunuchs.


Now that connexion is a product of a truely warped mind.


and one devoid of any trace of humour.

mkb.
Aug 12 '05 #15
the other canonical responses:

- killfile killfile killfile
- nothing to see here ... keep moving
- don't cross-post your replies, don't rile the perl users.

Aug 12 '05 #16
ax**@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:
In comp.lang.perl.misc Xah Lee <xa*@xahlee.org> wrote:
The other class of jargon stupidity is from computing practitioners,
of which the Unix/Perl community is exemplary. For example, the name
Unix & Perl themselves are good examples of buzzing jargons. Unix is
supposed to be opposed of Multics and hints on the offensive and
tasteless term eunuchs.


Now that connexion is a product of a truely warped mind.


If you really must feed the troll, please at least set follow-ups
to cut things back.

--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson

Aug 13 '05 #17
Xah Lee wrote:
Jargons of Info Tech industry

(A Love of Jargons)

Xah Lee, 2002 Feb

The jargon-soaked stupidity in computing field can be grouped into
classes <SNIP> ... <SNIP> One flagrant example is Sun Microsystem's
Java stuff <SNIP> ... <SNIP> fucking stupid Java and fuck Sun
Microsystems. This is just one example of Jargon hodgepodge of one
single commercial entity.

The other class of jargon stupidity is from computing practitioners, of
which the Unix/Perl community is exemplary <SNIP> ... <SNIP> These types of
jargons exudes juvenile humor. Cheesiness and low-taste is their
hall-mark.

There is another class of jargon moronicity, which i find them most
damaging to society, <SNIP> ... <SNIP> I think the reason for these, is that these
massive body of average programers usually don't have much knowledge of
significant mathematics, <SNIP> ... <SNIP> these people defining
or hatching terms <SNIP> ... <SNIP> are often a result of sopho-morons
trying to sound big.
<SNIP> ... <SNIP> Because most programers are sopho-morons who are less capable of clear thinking but nevertheless
possess human vanity, <SNIP> ... <SNIP>
<SNIP> ... <SNIP> One can see that the term “closure” is quite vague in conveying its meaning. The term
nevertheless is very popular among talkative programers and dense
tutorials, precisely because it is vague and mysterious. These
pseudo-wit living zombies, never thought for a moment that they are
using a moronic term, <SNIP> ... <SNIP> (for an example of the
fantastically stupid write-up on closure by the Perl folks <SNIP> ... <SNIP>
<SNIP> ... <SNIP> <SNIP> ... <SNIP> (one may think from the above tree-diagram that Java the language has at least put clear distinction to interface
and implementation, whereas in my opinion they are one fantastic fuck
up too, in many respects.)


I've extracted the preceding castigating snippets from Mr. Lee's Jargon
"thesis". :)) When reciprocated upon his own posts; one could offer up
the proverb, "he who lives in glass houses should not throw stones."

His inflammatory rhetoric - light on facts, weak in application, and
generously peppered with self-aggrandizing insults - would probably
offend Jerry Springer by comparison.

Perhaps the "professor" should more carefully scrutinize himself before
attempting to castigate others, less he acquire the reputation of a
hypocrite, e.g. -
"are often a result of sopho-morons trying to sound big.";
"who are less capable of clear thinking but nevertheless possess
human vanity";
"These types of jargons exudes juvenile humor.";
"Cheesiness and low-taste is their hall-mark."

Elementary courses in Critical Reasoning, Topical Research, Grammar,
Creative Writing, and Technical Writing also seem warranted.

A little one on one time with a mental health practitioner probably
wouldn't hurt either. :))

P.S. Until then, does anyones else deem it appropriate to give
"professor" Lee the nickname "Xah Lee Springer"?
Aug 14 '05 #18
Alex <th****************@yahoo.com> writes:
Xah Lee wrote: [SSSNNNIIIPPP!!!] I've extracted the preceding castigating snippets from Mr. Lee's
Jargon "thesis".

[SSSNNNIIIPPP!!!]

*Please stop posting followups to this off-topic nonsense. Just
ignore it. Responding to spam is spam; responding to a troll gives
him exactly what he wants and annoys the heck out of the rest of us.

+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
================================================== ============

Followups redirected appropriately.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Aug 14 '05 #19
Unix, RFC, and Line Truncation

[Note: unix tradition requires that a return be inserted at every 70
characters in email messages or so so that each line are less than 80
characters. Unixers made this as a requirement into an RFC document.]

Xah Lee, 20020511

This truncation of lines business is a hatred of mine, from email
formatting to formatting of program codes. I have been fighting with
the unix slew of morons about the line cut for years. The unix morons
are the number one excuse expert, that whenever in an argument they'll
mention some RFC “specifications”. (RFC = Really Fucking Common,
invented by mostly unix folks in the 70s.)

the unix morons, think that the world should truncate lines just like
their incompetent operating system silently truncate lines (and it
still DOES, folks! e.g. ps, tar, tcsh.) Around 1998 when i was using
Outlook Express or Eudora before that, i remember i can set lines to
not hard-wrap, and i did. Boy that always pissed the unix blockheads.
In their diddly eyes and lousy email software, i'm breaking standards,
making things hard to read, and being a stupid ass. Their brain fail to
see what unix ways are not capable of. These guys are the same slew of
morons who cry in pain about how the web should not commercialize
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),
and lynx is the best browser (circa 1995), and GUI is for sissys and
mouse is for pussies and Apple computer is for kids (circa 1987).

There is no reason for a paragraph encoding to be splattered with end
of line characters, nor the human labor expended. There is reason for
paragraphs to be displayed not too wide, and that is readability. What
the unixer could not get clear of is a distinction of concepts. Because
their fantastically hacked-up operating system operate by the principle
that lines should not be some 80 chars or else it will be truncated and
*silently* too, thus it became _necessarily_ their _habit_ and thought
that line truncation business is natural and a human duty. Unknown of
these setups, the unix geeks go by their presumption that all text
should be hard wrapped, as if parameters should be hard-coded.

I recall, two particular unix hotshots who bugged me about the line
truncations business is the Perl priest Tom Christiansen, who used to
reside over comp.lang.perl.*, and another unix jockey Chris Nandor, who
was a MacPerl proponent now the main maintainer. It is not a
coincidence that the people who go out of their way to complain about
any “format=flowed” or softwrapped or logically-formattedlines in
emails are always the unixers. The unix twits will start a flame war
over a petty formatting issue, because it's unix's training to bent
over pettiness, not to mention they are the ones who are retarded on
the issue of line truncation.

As i have alluded to above, there are serious problems with the
line-truncation ways of thinking. The gist is that it is a form of
physical formatting as opposed to logical. (think softwrap vs hardwrap,
parameter vs hard-code) Those who are familiar with the history or
reason for SGML and HTML should understand the problem. Many of you
familiar with drive of evolution of HTML from 1995 days to today's CSS
& XML should also understand the issue. We wish to encode information,
and be flexible about representation, not botching info into one
particular representation.

The harm done by the unixers to society is of a long lasting and
pervasive nature. First is the RFC, which serves as the mob's standard,
which requires that every emailer should be broken like unix, so that
unix can process them without problems. Fuck unix and fuck unix geeks.
Secondly, it drains human labor. Right this second there are hundreds
of people pressing returns or fixing jagged lines unnecessarily.
Thinking and computer could have done that for us, if not for fucking
stupid unix and its people. Thirdly, a generation of programs and
programer's times are wasted over tools that mutilate paragraphs into
pieces. (in emacs, there's fill-paragraph etc, and in BBEdit it's just
called “Hard Wrap”) Fourthly, physical formatting ultimately
multiply the process required on the data, as we can see in emails,
especially in combination with the stupid quote convention: “>”
(that's another unix invention.). But most importantly is that the
hard-liners instilled a bad notion, a confusion, that generated a
entire generation of utterly stupid programing languages and monkey
coders, starting with unix's C language.

As of 200506, the following two sites shows that
as late as 2001, unix tool tar (BSD) still truncate long file names.
http://www.sourcekeg.co.uk/www.mysql.../mac-os-x.html
(local copy)
http://nrg.cs.usm.my/~tcwan/macosx_essentials.htm
(local copy)

--------------------
This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w...cate_line.html

Xah
xa*@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/

Aug 22 '05 #20
"Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org> writes:
[the usual]

+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
================================================== ============

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Aug 22 '05 #21
> +-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\


Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............
(your picture looks all mangled here)
Aug 22 '05 #22
On Mon, 22 Aug 2005, jan V wrote:
Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............


Then I humbly submit thet they are using broken and/or badly
configured readers. ;-)

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
Aug 22 '05 #23
Rich Teer wrote:
On Mon, 22 Aug 2005, jan V wrote:

Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............

Then I humbly submit thet they are using broken and/or badly
configured readers. ;-)

Not to mention the fact that if they are unix morons they probably have
no idea what length the lines are anyway :-).

If only everyone would do things Xah Lee's way we wouldn't have to see
all his twaddle.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/

Aug 22 '05 #24
On 22 Aug 2005 11:43:09 -0700, "Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org> wrote or
quoted :
the unix morons, think that the world should truncate lines just like
their incompetent operating system silently truncate lines (and it
still DOES, folks! e.g. ps, tar, tcsh.) Around 1998 when i was using
Outlook Express or Eudora before that, i remember i can set lines to
not hard-wrap, and i did.


The telephone did not evolve, other than touch tone dialing. It took
cellphones to let people start over several times to get any changes.

Communications are slow to evolve because they require both ends to
change. This is almost impossible to accomplish politically.

This is why email and newsgroups will have to die and be replaced with
something entirely new that lets you transmit richer content, prevents
spam, verifies authorship, tracks attributions, does instant delivery
notification etc.

The problem is it will be very difficult for anything no matter how
cheap or technologically brilliant to get a foothold against the quite
wonderful entrenched distributed delivery of newsgroups.

Perhaps at some point will at least allow program listing that don't
wrap inappropriately, and HTML for displaying tables.

Aug 22 '05 #25
In article <IJ**********************@phobos.telenet-ops.be>, jan V
<nu*@nul.be> writes
+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\


Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............


I thought usenet specified fixed font. If you use something else don't
complain.

The Troll don't look pretty in fixed font either:-)
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ ch***@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Aug 22 '05 #26
"jan V" <nu*@nul.be> writes:
+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\


Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............
(your picture looks all mangled here)


If "PLEASE DO NOT" and "FEED THE TROLLS" are legible, even if they
aren't aligned as intended, the message has gotten through.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Aug 22 '05 #27
Keith Thompson wrote:
"Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org> writes:
[the usual]


At least he noticed that tar sucks. There's nothing better than tarring
your backup back to disk, only to notice that the pathnames were "too
long." Great!

--
I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
Dogbert
Aug 22 '05 #28
"jan V" <nu*@nul.be> wrote:
+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\


Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............
(your picture looks all mangled here)


That's your own fault, though, innit?

Richard
Aug 23 '05 #29
Xah Lee wrote:

You stupid UNIX donkey! Why you wrap your email? You wasted time
formatting email that you could have used to read Python documentation
and critique it! How you expect to change world if you spend time
formatting email??? And I no want hear you let Google groups format
it! If you use stupid UNIX-using, text monkey service like Google to
format your email, then you no longer worthy to be our prince!!

I, Lah Xee, master of wit and expert grammarian must rise to occasion
and become pre-eminent troll for common good of all mankind! Down with
UNIX!! Down with Mac!! Down with Perl!! Down with Xah Lee!! You will
all bow before my astonishing wisdom and knowledge!!

Now, why do this so-called "print" statement in Python f*ck up my text
by splattering it with end of line characters?

Lah Xee
Master Grammarian
Pre-Eminent Troll
Unix, RFC, and Line Truncation

[Note: unix tradition requires that a return be inserted at every 70
characters in email messages or so so that each line are less than 80
characters. Unixers made this as a requirement into an RFC document.]

Xah Lee, 20020511

This truncation of lines business is a hatred of mine, from email
formatting to formatting of program codes. I have been fighting with
the unix slew of morons about the line cut for years. The unix morons
are the number one excuse expert, that whenever in an argument they'll
mention some RFC “specifications”. (RFC = Really Fucking Common,
invented by mostly unix folks in the 70s.)

the unix morons, think that the world should truncate lines just like
their incompetent operating system silently truncate lines (and it
still DOES, folks! e.g. ps, tar, tcsh.) Around 1998 when i was using
Outlook Express or Eudora before that, i remember i can set lines to
not hard-wrap, and i did. Boy that always pissed the unix blockheads.
In their diddly eyes and lousy email software, i'm breaking standards,
making things hard to read, and being a stupid ass. Their brain fail to
see what unix ways are not capable of. These guys are the same slew of
morons who cry in pain about how the web should not commercialize
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),
and lynx is the best browser (circa 1995), and GUI is for sissys and
mouse is for pussies and Apple computer is for kids (circa 1987).

There is no reason for a paragraph encoding to be splattered with end
of line characters, nor the human labor expended. There is reason for
paragraphs to be displayed not too wide, and that is readability. What
the unixer could not get clear of is a distinction of concepts. Because
their fantastically hacked-up operating system operate by the principle
that lines should not be some 80 chars or else it will be truncated and
*silently* too, thus it became _necessarily_ their _habit_ and thought
that line truncation business is natural and a human duty. Unknown of
these setups, the unix geeks go by their presumption that all text
should be hard wrapped, as if parameters should be hard-coded.

I recall, two particular unix hotshots who bugged me about the line
truncations business is the Perl priest Tom Christiansen, who used to
reside over comp.lang.perl.*, and another unix jockey Chris Nandor, who
was a MacPerl proponent now the main maintainer. It is not a
coincidence that the people who go out of their way to complain about
any “format=flowed” or softwrapped or logically-formatted lines in
emails are always the unixers. The unix twits will start a flame war
over a petty formatting issue, because it's unix's training to bent
over pettiness, not to mention they are the ones who are retarded on
the issue of line truncation.

As i have alluded to above, there are serious problems with the
line-truncation ways of thinking. The gist is that it is a form of
physical formatting as opposed to logical. (think softwrap vs hardwrap,
parameter vs hard-code) Those who are familiar with the history or
reason for SGML and HTML should understand the problem. Many of you
familiar with drive of evolution of HTML from 1995 days to today's CSS
& XML should also understand the issue. We wish to encode information,
and be flexible about representation, not botching info into one
particular representation.

The harm done by the unixers to society is of a long lasting and
pervasive nature. First is the RFC, which serves as the mob's standard,
which requires that every emailer should be broken like unix, so that
unix can process them without problems. Fuck unix and fuck unix geeks.
Secondly, it drains human labor. Right this second there are hundreds
of people pressing returns or fixing jagged lines unnecessarily.
Thinking and computer could have done that for us, if not for fucking
stupid unix and its people. Thirdly, a generation of programs and
programer's times are wasted over tools that mutilate paragraphs into
pieces. (in emacs, there's fill-paragraph etc, and in BBEdit it's just
called “Hard Wrap”) Fourthly, physical formatting ultimately
multiply the process required on the data, as we can see in emails,
especially in combination with the stupid quote convention: “>”
(that's another unix invention.). But most importantly is that the
hard-liners instilled a bad notion, a confusion, that generated a
entire generation of utterly stupid programing languages and monkey
coders, starting with unix's C language.

As of 200506, the following two sites shows that
as late as 2001, unix tool tar (BSD) still truncate long file names.
http://www.sourcekeg.co.uk/www.mysql.../mac-os-x.html
(local copy)
http://nrg.cs.usm.my/~tcwan/macosx_essentials.htm
(local copy)

--------------------
This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w...cate_line.html

Xah
xa*@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/


Aug 23 '05 #30
l v
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),
I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news
readers set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers
and spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the
link without looking to see where the link really takes them.
reason for SGML and HTML should understand the problem. Many of you
familiar with drive of evolution of HTML from 1995 days to today's CSS
& XML should also understand the issue. We wish to encode information,
I do not want spammers to encode information in their emails.
Xah


Please go to jobs.org

Len

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
Aug 23 '05 #31

"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:11*************@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),


I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news readers
set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers and
spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the link
without looking to see where the link really takes them.


A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
posts.
Aug 23 '05 #32
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> wrote:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:11*************@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),


I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news readers
set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers and
spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the link
without looking to see where the link really takes them.


A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
posts.


Used to be that the formatting-only subset of HTML was called HTML.

Used to be that people were wise to itinerant kooks such as the OP.

Richard
Aug 23 '05 #33
In comp.lang.perl.misc Chris Hills <ch***@phaedsys.org> wrote:
In article <IJ**********************@phobos.telenet-ops.be>, jan V
<nu*@nul.be> writes
+-------------------+ .:\:\:/:/:.
| PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
| FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
| | '=(\ 9 9 /)='
| Thank you, | ( (_) )
| Management | /`-vvv-'\
+-------------------+ / \
| | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \
| | @@@ /_// /^\ \\_\
@x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW
\||||/ | | \| __\,,\ /,,/__
\||/ | | | jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Please don't use ASCII art... not everyone uses a fixed-width font for his
newsreader...............

I thought usenet specified fixed font. If you use something else don't
complain. The Troll don't look pretty in fixed font either:-)


I don't think trolls are supposed to look pretty, but rather ugly.

Axel
Aug 23 '05 #34
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
posts.


Nope; plain text for both mediums is, IMHO, th eonly way to go.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
Aug 23 '05 #35
l v
Mike Schilling wrote:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:11*************@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),


I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news readers
set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers and
spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the link
without looking to see where the link really takes them.

A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
posts.


I would *agree* (your news reader may bold that last word)

Len

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
Aug 23 '05 #36
l v wrote:
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),
I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news
readers set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers


Be generous in what you accept and conservative in what you send ;)

I always send plaintext emails, but Thunderbird can also display HTML.
Of course I don't let it load remote images in the HTML, so no feedback
for the marketers.
and spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
When that HTML execution accesses further remote resources.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the
link without looking to see where the link really takes them.


That's a problem, yes. As usual, education helps.

--
I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
Dogbert
Aug 23 '05 #37
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Ulrich Hobelmann <u.*********@web.de> writes:
Keith Thompson wrote:
"Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org> writes:
[the usual]
At least he noticed that tar sucks. There's nothing better than tarring
your backup back to disk, only to notice that the pathnames were "too
long." Great!


That's been fixed for quite some time, though. The current GNU tar
(1.15.1) writes POSIX.1-2001 (PAX) archives, and has read them for
quite a long time before.
Regards,
Roger

- --
Roger Leigh
Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org/
GPG Public Key: 0x25BFB848. Please sign and encrypt your mail.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/>

iD8DBQFDC5T5VcFcaSW/uEgRAmJ6AKDsqFmvoBsOqsm/6zIfHQleMpI5KwCgsR6Q
yO7hX52yq/iHIHC2yJ6hF2A=
=MCYF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Aug 23 '05 #38
Roger Leigh wrote:
At least he noticed that tar sucks. There's nothing better than tarring
your backup back to disk, only to notice that the pathnames were "too
long." Great!


That's been fixed for quite some time, though. The current GNU tar
(1.15.1) writes POSIX.1-2001 (PAX) archives, and has read them for
quite a long time before.


Don't remember where it bit me. Either Free- or NetBSD, or Mac OS 10.3,
but it was sometime after 2002... probably not GNU tar, though.

--
I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
Dogbert
Aug 23 '05 #39
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:11*************@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),


I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news readers
set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers and
spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the link
without looking to see where the link really takes them.


A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
posts.


Used to be people who wanted to send formatted text via email would
use rich text. It never really caught on. But given that most of the
people sending around formatted text are using point-n-click GUIs to
create the stuff, the main advantage of HTML - that it's easy to write
by hand - isn't needed.

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
Aug 24 '05 #40
l v <lv@aol.com> wrote:
Mike Schilling wrote:
A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
posts.


I would *agree* (your news reader may bold that last word)


It had bloody better not. You're cross-posting this to a C newsgroup,
where *ptr* 4 is a legal (albeit inadvisably spaced) expression.

Richard
Aug 24 '05 #41
rl*@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos) writes:
l v <lv@aol.com> wrote:
Mike Schilling wrote:
> A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and Usenet
> posts.


I would *agree* (your news reader may bold that last word)


It had bloody better not. You're cross-posting this to a C newsgroup,
where *ptr* 4 is a legal (albeit inadvisably spaced) expression.


Or _ptr_ for that matter (does it underline for you?)

Well, at least on my newsreader (gnus), I can toggle the behaviour. Ditto
for smileys:

(setq gnus-treat-display-smileys nil)

Dragan

--
Dragan Cvetkovic,

To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer

!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!
Aug 24 '05 #42

"Mike Meyer" <mw*@mired.org> wrote in message
news:86************@bhuda.mired.org...
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:11*************@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
Xah Lee wrote:
(circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),

I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and news
readers
set to display in plain text only. It prevents the marketeers and
spammers from obtaining feedback that my email address is valid. A
surprising amount of information can be obtained from your computer by
allowing HTML and all of it's baggage when executing on your computer.
Phishing comes to my mind first and it works because people click the
link
without looking to see where the link really takes them.


A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail and
Usenet
posts.


Used to be people who wanted to send formatted text via email would
use rich text. It never really caught on. But given that most of the
people sending around formatted text are using point-n-click GUIs to
create the stuff, the main advantage of HTML - that it's easy to write
by hand - isn't needed.


But the other advantage, that it's an existing and popular standard,
remains.
Aug 25 '05 #43
Mike Schilling wrote:
"Mike Meyer" <mw*@mired.org> wrote in message
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
Xah Lee wrote:

> (circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),

I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and
news readers set to display in plain text only. It prevents
the marketeers and spammers from obtaining feedback that my
email address is valid. A surprising amount of information
can be obtained from your computer by allowing HTML and all
of it's baggage when executing on your computer. Phishing
comes to my mind first and it works because people click the
link without looking to see where the link really takes them.

A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail
and Usenet posts.


Used to be people who wanted to send formatted text via email
would use rich text. It never really caught on. But given that
most of the people sending around formatted text are using
point-n-click GUIs to create the stuff, the main advantage of
HTML - that it's easy to write by hand - isn't needed.


But the other advantage, that it's an existing and popular
standard, remains.


However, for both e-mail and news, it is totally useless. It also
interferes with the use of AsciiArt, while opening the recipient to
the dangers above.

--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
Aug 25 '05 #44
CBFalconer wrote:
Mike Schilling wrote:
"Mike Meyer" <mw*@mired.org> wrote in message
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
> Xah Lee wrote:
>
>> (circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),
>
> I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and
> news readers set to display in plain text only. It prevents
> the marketeers and spammers from obtaining feedback that my
> email address is valid. A surprising amount of information
> can be obtained from your computer by allowing HTML and all
> of it's baggage when executing on your computer. Phishing
> comes to my mind first and it works because people click the
> link without looking to see where the link really takes them.

A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail
and Usenet posts.

Used to be people who wanted to send formatted text via email
would use rich text. It never really caught on. But given that
most of the people sending around formatted text are using
point-n-click GUIs to create the stuff, the main advantage of
HTML - that it's easy to write by hand - isn't needed.


But the other advantage, that it's an existing and popular
standard, remains.


However, for both e-mail and news, it is totally useless. It also
interferes with the use of AsciiArt, while opening the recipient to
the dangers above.


And HTML has the tendency to make e-mail and Usenet posts unnecessarily
bigger, which will continue to be a bugger until broadband links become
common enough.

-- Denis
Aug 25 '05 #45

"CBFalconer" <cb********@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:43***************@yahoo.com...
Mike Schilling wrote:
"Mike Meyer" <mw*@mired.org> wrote in message
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"l v" <lv@aol.com> wrote in message
> Xah Lee wrote:
>
>> (circa 1996), and email should be text only (anti-MIME, circa 1995),
>
> I think e-mail should be text only. I have both my email and
> news readers set to display in plain text only. It prevents
> the marketeers and spammers from obtaining feedback that my
> email address is valid. A surprising amount of information
> can be obtained from your computer by allowing HTML and all
> of it's baggage when executing on your computer. Phishing
> comes to my mind first and it works because people click the
> link without looking to see where the link really takes them.

A formatting-only subset of HTML would be useful for both e-mail
and Usenet posts.

Used to be people who wanted to send formatted text via email
would use rich text. It never really caught on. But given that
most of the people sending around formatted text are using
point-n-click GUIs to create the stuff, the main advantage of
HTML - that it's easy to write by hand - isn't needed.
But the other advantage, that it's an existing and popular
standard, remains.


However, for both e-mail and news, it is totally useless.


Useless except in that it can describe formatting, which is what it would be
used for? (
It also
interferes with the use of AsciiArt,
Except that it can specify the use of a fixed-width font, which makes Ascii
Art work. It can also distinguish between text that can be reformatted for
flow and text than can not.

So I think you meant to say that it *enables* Ascii Art.
while opening the recipient to
the dangers above.


Which is why a formatting-only subset, which doesn't cause any such dangers,
is required. As I said above.

Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today already
comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a message saved to a file
can be read very easily.
Aug 25 '05 #46
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today already
comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a message saved to a file
can be read very easily.


I think you're missing the point: email and Usenet are, historically have
been, and should always be, plain text mediums. If I wanted to look at
prettily formatted HTML, I'd use a web browser to look at the web.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
Aug 25 '05 #47

"Rich Teer" <ri*******@rite-group.com> wrote in message
news:Pi******************************@zen.rite-group.com...
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today already
comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a message saved to a
file
can be read very easily.


I think you're missing the point: email and Usenet are, historically have
been, and should always be, plain text mediums.


Gosh, if you say they should be, there's no point trying to have an
intelligent discussion, is there?
Aug 25 '05 #48

Mike Schilling wrote:
"Rich Teer" <ri*******@rite-group.com> wrote in message
news:Pi******************************@zen.rite-group.com...
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today already
comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a message saved to a
file
can be read very easily.


I think you're missing the point: email and Usenet are, historically have
been, and should always be, plain text mediums.


Gosh, if you say they should be, there's no point trying to have an
intelligent discussion, is there?


Not to mention that e-mail is practically to the point where it is
{not} a plain text medium. I notice this especially in a corporate
environment (where, at least where I work, I get at least 10 times the
number of e-mails at work than I do on my private account) HTML e-mail
is the de-facto standard. I have a tendancy to send out plain text
e-mail, and I'm practically the only one, as HTML formatting is the
default for the mail client on every corporate machine at my job.

But let's not forget that most people which send me e-mail personally
also have HTML tags in e-mail... So if e-mail {is} a plain text
medium, somebody needs to tell the general public, because I think they
must've missed a memo.

If we argue that people are evolving the way e-mail is handled, and
adding entire new feature sets to something which has been around since
the earliest days of the internet, then that's perfectly feasable.
HTML itself has grown. We've also added Javascript and Shockwave. The
websites of today don't even resemble the websites of 10 years ago,
e-mail of today only remotely resembles the original, so the argument
that usenet should never change seems a little heavy-handed and
anachronistic.

--T Beck

Aug 25 '05 #49
joe
"Mike Schilling" <ms*************@hotmail.com> writes:
"Rich Teer" <ri*******@rite-group.com> wrote in message
news:Pi******************************@zen.rite-group.com...
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today
already comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a
message saved to a file can be read very easily.


I think you're missing the point: email and Usenet are,
historically have been, and should always be, plain text mediums.


Gosh, if you say they should be, there's no point trying to have an
intelligent discussion, is there?


Errm, isn't that what you're doing as well then? Rich just gave an
opinion, you've been giving an opinion. Rich's opinion happens to have
a lot of history and good reasons behind it. I don't see why it should
be viewed as some kind of discussion ending dogmatism.

Although it might not be bad if this discussion ended :-)

Joe
Aug 25 '05 #50

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