As part of their “best Ajax” article:
http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/192203368?pgno=7
Welcome to the 1980s. Want to make text bold? You’ll
have to put the characters * and * around it. For big
text, first type in h1. All that’s missing is a DOS
prompt and a floppy disk. No thanks – been there,
done that.
Later,
Bil K. wrote:
As part of their “best Ajax” article:
Review: The Best Ajax-Based Apps | Dr Dobb's
Welcome to the 1980s. Want to make text bold? You’ll
have to put the characters * and * around it. For big
text, first type in h1. All that’s missing is a DOS
prompt and a floppy disk. No thanks – been there,
done that.
The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Besides, WYSIWYG is so '90s.
I much prefer Writely to Writeboard, but this reviewer so misses the
point it’s laughable.
(I think the last good issue of Dr. Dobbs was the 30th anniversary one.)
–
James B.
“Judge a man by his questions, rather than his answers.”
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
James B. wrote:
The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Besides, WYSIWYG is so '90s.I much prefer Writely to Writeboard, but this reviewer so misses the
point it’s laughable.(I think the last good issue of Dr. Dobbs was the 30th anniversary one.)
Well now … I agree with Dr. Dobbs in this case. Give me WYSIWYG or
give me HTML, but don’t make me learn a third language to mark up
text!
Bleh, give me something BETTER than HTML, which is RedCloth.
Joe
On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:35:10 -0400, Bil K. [email protected] wrote:
As part of their “best Ajax” article:
Review: The Best Ajax-Based Apps | Dr Dobb's
Welcome to the 1980s. Want to make text bold? You’ll
have to put the characters * and * around it. For big
As always, Different Strokes for Different Folks.
Applications like Word and, apparently, Writeboard aren’t word
processors
anymore. They are desktop publishers. People spend way to much time
“prettying up” throw-away documents, such as interoffice memos (IOM),
email, etc. E.g. A lot of people at my employer use Word to write an IOM
announcing, say, someones promotion. 5k of text becomes 200k+ with the
logo in the header, formatting commands and so on. Who knows how much
time
they spend changing paragraph indentation, kerning, line spacing, etc.
Very often I need something just a little more expressive than standard
text. Perhaps a bulleted list, emphasis here and there, maybe links to
external resources. I find RedCloth (in the form of Textile) to be
excellent for this purpose.
In effect the DDJ article reviewers were looking for Word, and wound up
bashing a markup language.
Regards,
JJ
James B. wrote:
The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Besides, WYSIWYG is so '90s.I much prefer Writely to Writeboard, but this reviewer so misses the
point it’s laughable.(I think the last good issue of Dr. Dobbs was the 30th anniversary one.)
Well now … I agree with Dr. Dobbs in this case. Give me WYSIWYG or
give me HTML, but don’t make me learn a third language to mark up
text!
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:30:42 -0400, Adam S. [email protected]
wrote:
Matz is Nice → Matz made Ruby → Ruby is Red → Redcloth is Red and
Ruby → Redcloth is Nice!
→ Matz is Redcloth ?
Regards,
JJ
Whoa whoa whoa there. We’re on comp.lang.ruby, so we must use
appropriate ruby logic!
Matz is Nice -> Matz made Ruby -> Ruby is Red -> Redcloth is Red and
Ruby -> Redcloth is Nice!
Tada.
Anyways I think that Markdown, Textile, Redcloth, RDoc (I really like
it!), and all the rest of the wiki style markup syntaxes are an
acquired taste. I love them because I can focus on what I’m writing
instead of formatting things. WYSIWIG has some appeal, but how many
times have you tried to make a list in Word and have it do utterly the
wrong thing, or try to not make a list which Word insists will become a
list?
Anyways, in the long run, some people will like markup interfaces, some
will prefer WYSIWIG stuff, but it’s really just that, a preference. I
think that quote was a little short sited, but hey that’s probably
because I dig these markup syntaxes.
.adam
On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 01:52:44AM +0900, John J. wrote:
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:30:42 -0400, Adam S. [email protected]
wrote:Matz is Nice → Matz made Ruby → Ruby is Red → Redcloth is Red and
Ruby → Redcloth is Nice!→ Matz is Redcloth ?
No . . . but Redcloth is Matz!
On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 02:03:45AM +0900, Chad P. wrote:
On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 01:52:44AM +0900, John J. wrote:
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:30:42 -0400, Adam S. [email protected]
wrote:Matz is Nice → Matz made Ruby → Ruby is Red → Redcloth is Red and
Ruby → Redcloth is Nice!→ Matz is Redcloth ?
No . . . but Redcloth is Matz!
Dr. Dobbs is a Doctor → Doctors fix Matz → When he’s Broken →
RedCloth is
Broken → Dr. Dobbs is a murderer!!
Can you comprehend THAT??
_why
why the lucky stiff wrote:
On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 02:03:45AM +0900, Chad P. wrote:
Dr. Dobbs is a Doctor -> Doctors fix Matz -> When he’s Broken -> RedCloth is
Broken -> Dr. Dobbs is a murderer!!Can you comprehend THAT??
I fear the uncertainty of doubt!
The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Besides, WYSIWYG is so '90s.I much prefer Writely to Writeboard, but this reviewer so misses the
point it’s laughable.(I think the last good issue of Dr. Dobbs was the 30th anniversary one.)
Well now … I agree with Dr. Dobbs in this case. Give me WYSIWYG or
give me HTML, but don’t make me learn a third language to mark up text!
Didn’t you mean to say “don’t make me learn a third language to
mark up text” ?
Sorry… I just couldn’t help myself
Philip H. wrote:
The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Didn’t you mean to say “don’t make me learn a third language to
mark up text” ?
Sorry… I just couldn’t help myself
Uh … yeah. Dang VT100 muscle memory.
Which reminds me … I need to install a DOS emulator to run some Pascal
code.
James B. wrote:
I fear the uncertainty of doubt!
Badoom-tisch!
David V.
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Uh … yeah. Dang VT100 muscle memory.
PWNED! cough
Besides. On which language to program a computer are you now? Or did you
stop counting around twenty? Nothing wrong with an alternate approach if
it’s better. And Textile sure is less (sometimes much less) of a
wristkiller than raw HTML. I wonder which smart mind came up with the
angle bracket idea, and all the slashes aren’t nice on the pinkies
either.
I sometimes prefer Markdown or Mediawiki syntax, since Textile headings
are ghastly. But Textile’s quick CSS modifiers for margins and paragraph
indentation are very neat, and on the whole it’s a bit richer.
But Dr. Dobbs’ point -is- valid, exposing someone to that by default,
heck, without a WYSIWYG alternative is just vile - even if it’s
technically a very good alternative to HTML, it’s an annoying We Know
What’s Good For You Better Than You Do attitude to your users /
customers. (Even if I resent the DOS prompt / floppy disk oh-so-witty
wisecrack - you’re a journalist, just review the damn software without
having to invent smartass ways to emphasise its suckiness when you run
out of factual observations and leave the dry sarcasm to people that are
actually funny.)
David V.
James B. wrote:
It seems more like a “We’re offering an option for people who prefer
Textile to WYSIWYG or hand-coded HTML, since no one is forced to use any
of these tools, and choice is good” attitude.The reviewer missed this same point.
Hmm. My phrasing of that was wrong. And probably what I was saying in
the first place too… Comparing a rather specialised text-sharing tool
to Word-inna-browser ones is indeed nonsense.
David V.
David V. wrote:
But Dr. Dobbs’ point -is- valid, exposing someone to that by default,
heck, without a WYSIWYG alternative is just vile - even if it’s
technically a very good alternative to HTML, it’s an annoying We Know
What’s Good For You Better Than You Do attitude to your users /
customers.
It seems more like a “We’re offering an option for people who prefer
Textile to WYSIWYG or hand-coded HTML, since no one is forced to use any
of these tools, and choice is good” attitude.
The reviewer missed this same point.
–
James B.
“Blanket statements are over-rated”
David V. wrote:
I sometimes prefer Markdown or Mediawiki syntax, since Textile headings
are ghastly. But Textile’s quick CSS modifiers for margins and paragraph
indentation are very neat, and on the whole it’s a bit richer.
FYI, RedCloth 3.x does (some) Markdown too,
http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/usingRedcloth3.html
but it’s only mentioned in the tag line of,
http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/redcloth/
Regards,
On 8/30/06, Bil K. [email protected] wrote:
David V. wrote:
I sometimes prefer Markdown or Mediawiki syntax, since Textile headings
are ghastly. But Textile’s quick CSS modifiers for margins and paragraph
indentation are very neat, and on the whole it’s a bit richer.FYI, RedCloth 3.x does (some) Markdown too,
[snip]
I’ve tried RedCloth, but IIRC it wouldn’t let me tell it only process
Markdown (and not Textile markup) so I switched to BlueCloth. I got
the impression that, with RedCloth, Markdown is a bit of a 2nd-class
citizen.
The BlueCloth source looks to be fairly straightforward (maybe a
fairly direct recoding of John Gruber’s own Perl version?), is only
one source code file, and is pretty well-commented.
—John
James B. wrote:
It seems more like a “We’re offering an option for people who prefer
Textile to WYSIWYG or hand-coded HTML, since no one is forced to use any
of these tools, and choice is good” attitude.The reviewer missed this same point.
He stated a valid opinion, which you disagreed with and couldn’t handle
so you spewed ad hominems and fud like “WYSIWYG is so '90s”.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/d8a6759e03c190c8?dmode=source&hl=en
James B. wrote:
The reviewer missed this same point.
He stated a valid opinion,
Actually what I said was:
"He stated a valid opinion, which you disagreed with and couldn’t
handle
so you spewed ad hominems and fud like “WYSIWYG is so '90s”. "
This forum is not affiliated to the Ruby language, Ruby on Rails framework, nor any Ruby applications discussed here.
Sponsor our Newsletter | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Remote Ruby Jobs