D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] I thought this might get a bit of a reaction

 

On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 12:53:06PM +0000, Tom Potts wrote:
> On Wednesday 10 December 2008 12:26, Benjamin M. A'Lee wrote:
> ...
> > Of course, most of the things that people use docx/pdf for could be
> > represented as plaintext, or at a push HTML, with no loss of
> > information.
>
> PDF - Pointless Document Format.
> My screen is not A4 or A5 and my printer driver can format anything to fit on 
> whatever paper its got in it thanks - assuming your document is so badly 
> written I have to print it to make sense of it.

PDF is better than DOC/DOCX, as far as I'm concerned, and even ODT etc.
if I don't need to edit the document, simply because xpdf is a much
smaller, simpler piece of software than OpenOffice. 

I still wish people wouldn't use them unless it's actually necessary
(i.e. probably never). Unless the presentation matters more than the
actual content, all of these formats are massive overkill.

> Plaintext is probably better than PDF in that it wont cost me (in terms of CPU 
> and diskspace) to edit or otherwise utilise your document but sensible use of 
> the hyperlink will make all our lives easier - assuming I cant get my 
> computer to talks to your computer and leave me out of it altogether....

I'd rather plaintext than HTML, for similar reasons - all computers[1]
come with vi, so I can read/write plaintext anywhere; HTML adds extra
flexibility in terms of formatting but more overhead in the markup used,
and the tradeoff usually isn't worthwhile. If you really need to link to
something, put a plain URL in and I'll open it in a browser.

> Office software is to your computer what a car chassis is to the combustion 
> engine - stops it flying!

But an engine isn't much use on its own, either...


[1] All real computers, that is.

-- 
Benjamin M. A'Lee || mail: bma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web: http://subvert.org.uk/~bma/ || gpg: 0xBB6D2FA0
"The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion
and of science lies in this concept of a personal God.

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html