[29344] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 588 Volume: 11
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Wed Jun 27 09:14:16 2007
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:14:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Wed, 27 Jun 2007 Volume: 11 Number: 588
Today's topics:
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <notbob@nothome.com>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and (MSCHAEF.COM)
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and (Timofei Shatrov)
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <saint@spammer.impiccati.it>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <borud-news@borud.no>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <borud-news@borud.no>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <k.s.matheussen@notam02.no>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <twisted0n3@gmail.com>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and <saint@spammer.impiccati.it>
Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and (Timofei Shatrov)
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:12:00 -0500
From: notbob <notbob@nothome.com>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <EM2dndPTGMD9JBzbnZ2dnUVZ_gudnZ2d@comcast.com>
On 2007-06-27, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
> irritating was the necessary frequent trips to the help. Even when the
> help was easy to use (itself rare) that's a load of additional task
> switching and crap. Of course, lots of the time the help was not easy
> to use. Man pages and anything else viewed on a console, for example
On the plus side, you only have to learn it once. With new releases
of Windows/Office, more often than not, Bill n' The Boys rename
functions and hide them somewhere else in an attempt to make it look
like they actually did something, so you end up wasting a lot of time
relearning what you already knew. Talk about irritating!
nb
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:47:53 -0500
From: mschaef@eris.io.com (MSCHAEF.COM)
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <24udnWmPrOxEUhzbnZ2dnUVZ_oqmnZ2d@io.com>
In article <1182904631.083783.170640@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote:
...
>In the other corner, we have just about every Unix application ever
>developed. When a user needs help, they may do such things as manually
>explore the directories where the application was installed
>(equivalent to rooting around in C:\Program Files\Appname for .hlp
>files, because F1 didn't work and there was no "help" menu,
I just pressed F1 in a running session of a Emacs under Ubuntu Linux... it
brought up online help.
>if such a thing ever happened on Windoze).
Such things happen _all the time_ on Windows, particularly if you count
help menus that lead solely to useless About boxes.
This might be a moot point anyway, given the high number of people I've
met that don't even bother reading online help in the first place.
-Mike
--
http://www.mschaef.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:20:53 GMT
From: grue@mail.ru (Timofei Shatrov)
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <46820f5a.58222469@news.readfreenews.net>
On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:07:04 -0000, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> tried to
confuse everyone with this message:
>"Stubbornly insisting on being odd" appears to be a particularly
>prevalent character flaw among the geeknoscenti.
>
Oh the irony.
--
|Don't believe this - you're not worthless ,gr---------.ru
|It's us against millions and we can't take them all... | ue il |
|But we can take them on! | @ma |
| (A Wilhelm Scream - The Rip) |______________|
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:18:14 +0200
From: Gian Uberto Lauri <saint@spammer.impiccati.it>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <87ir9924l5.fsf@mail.eng.it>
>>>>> Long count = 12.19.14.7.16; tzolkin = 2 Cib; haab = 4 Tzec.
>>>>> I get words from the Allmighty Great Gnus that
>>>>> "T" == Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> writes:
T> On Jun 26, 6:06 am, Gian Uberto Lauri <s...@spammer.impiccati.it>
T> wrote:
>> >> > HOW IN THE BLOODY HELL IS IT SUPPOSED TO OCCUR TO SOMEONE TO
>> >> ENTER > THEM, GIVEN THAT THEY HAVE TO DO SO TO REACH THE HELP
>> THAT >> WOULD TELL > THEM THOSE ARE THE KEYS TO REACH THE HELP?!
>>
>> >> What's your problem ?
>>
>> >> Ofcourse a mere program-consumer would not look what was being
>> >> installed on his/her system in the first place ... So after
>> some >> trivial perusing what was installed and where : WOW Look,
>> MA ! >> .... it's all there!
>>
>> >> lpr /usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/etc/refcard.ps or your >>
>> install-dir........^ ^ or your >>
>> version.............................^
>>
n> So now we're expected to go on a filesystem fishing expedition
n> instead of just hit F1? One small step (backwards) for a man; one
n> giant leap (backwards) for mankind. :P
T> [snipping some thinly-veiled insults and irrelevancies throughout]
>> There's a program called find, not this intuitive but worth
>> learning
>>
>> It could solve the problem from the root with something like
>>
>> find / -name refcard.ps -exec lpr {} \; 2> /dev/null
T> Let me get this straight.
T> In this corner, we have just about every Windows application ever
T> developed. When a user needs help, a click on the "help" menu or
T> tap of the F1 key is all it takes to obtain some. Sometimes the
T> help is not of the greatest quality, but that is another issue we
T> won't concern ourselves with here.
Hmmm. I just activated the help hitting F1... WOHA, it says that if I
press k after F1 I get the description of what that key does...
T> In the other corner, we have just about every Unix application ever
T> developed. When a user needs help, they may do such things as
T> manually explore the directories where the application was
T> installed
Ever heard about the man command ? Is the first thing you learn to
do...
T> Or alternatively
T> it can just magically come to them as a divinely inspired insight,
If they are Windows user, I pity them, their brain could have been
damaged beyond repair.
They'll never be blessed by the idea that programs can do work for
them, and will bash restlessy their keyboard in antiquate sequences of
pre-automatic-controls tasks (as a reference, take a look to the
Metropolis movie)
T> or in a dream or a burning bush or stone tablets from heaven or
T> something, that something useful might happen if the unlikely
T> combination of symbols "find / -name refcard.ps -exec lpr {} \; 2>
T> /dev/null"
Nothing this divine. Just someone a bit more experienced than you are.
On the other hand I never seen such thing like a refcard, that's not
in the standard documentation system for such a modern toxic waste
like Word.
T> obviously never occur to them. Even if they knew the find tool and
T> its syntax, it would still have to somehow occur to them that
T> "refcard.ps" might be a useful search target.
Strange. I am *NOT* a native english speaker and I think my Q.I. tends
toward average from below, but refcard sound very useful to me, maybe
is short for "reference card" ?
T> came to shove, clicking Start->Search and putting in ".hlp" and
T> "C:\Program Files\Appname" would quickly find any help files.
I admit. find is less intuitive. But the stuff Windows comes with does
just that and nothing more. It will never suggest you that the long
boring task expecting you can be solved in a completely automatic
way with a little creative job.
T> most usually the help files would be named to end with
T> .hlp.
All, or that impaired of a O.S. could not understand they are help
files.
T> Moreover, once found, a quick double click and they're in a
T> hypertext browser viewing the help.
Emacs help was hypertextual when Dr. Watson plagued Windowd 3.11
users...
T> Unless I miss my guess,
T> refcard.ps would require mucking about installing and configuring
T> Ghostscript and GSView,
Splash, large miss.
You usually fire it to the local printer.
Uh, I understand. A Windows user could never have shared its HP720c
printer... Windows printer driver aren't known to be smart.
Not an Emacs flaw.
T> enough. Trying to read anything serious and navigate in GSView is
T> no picnic either.
A refcard, my dear, is something that goes on an A4/Letter sheet and
NEEDS NOT to be hypertextual.
T> Reader *might* be able to do more with a .ps file
With a PS file you can do just one thing, execute it. It's a program,
did you know ?
Ah, I never use Acroread. Xpdf does all the things really needed.
Uh, I forget. For Windows users getting a PDF out of a PS or HTML or
ASCII is not this easy unless they get some extra software (someone
ported CUPS to Windows ?). Again, not an Emacs fault.
T> On a Unix box, if you don't know exactly how to get
T> some app viewing a .ps file and how to navigate in it I'm guessing
T> you're SOL.
Stop guessing or all will know that all you know about Unix is that
is a 4 letter word, the first a capital U, the last an x.
On a Unix system either YOU are the sysadmin and know about all the
stuff you need to view, concot, print and bit-recycle PS files or
there's a sysadmin that did this for you. All with free (as in freedom)
stuff.
Most Unix users thinks that Word is a typewriter on steroids not worth
using due its poor output on paper, and are used to a typesetting
system that deals effortlessy with PS, PDF and so on. Uh, oh, Emacs
hypertextual manuals can be turned into a PS or PDF ready for a fine
professional printer...
T> The original suggestion with "lpr" implies printing it
T> rather than viewing it online, which a) costs money and b) requires
T> configuring a printer and a Postscript interpreter, given that
T> unless the printer cost more than the computer's CPU it surely
T> won't natively grok Postscript.
I will call you if I need some advice about cars. Maybe.
But not at all for computers.
refcard.ps is something you print and keep on a side when you start
using Emacs, as a REFERENCE for the key sequence, in the case you
forget some of them.
All the computer screen is devoted to your work, the sheet provides
some extra "real estate" for the help information, a sort of double
heading display. All you need to do is turn your eyes from the
monitor, maybe your eyes and read the informations. It coudl happen
that you need to flip the sheet. But you can keep both your work and
the help text "ready at your fingertips", and this is useful indeed:
you read the command keybinding, turn your eyes, type it and see the
result and/or continue your work.
Online viewing. Great deal.
Flip windows until you reach refcard. Read the command. Flip again
windows until you reach Emacs. Use the command (but you could have
forgot the key sequence - redo from start.
About money. Indeed ink/toner and paper costs. Electricity grows on
the spark tree so aboundant in our forests...
Configuring a printer. Yes you need to configure a printer. You need
it with Windows too. But if your Windows printer driver does not
handle PostScript (or if it does not let you share your printer) *now*
you are SOL. PostScript printing on a Windows system that does not
support PS is a pain in the ass.
But PostScript printing on my '80 Epson printwriter or my HP720c with
a Unix system with CUP is as easy as opening a browser, telling the
system I have a HP720c plugged to the parallel port and voilà.
And I can even share my HP720c.
P> We're back to configuring
T> Ghostscript, only this time on the Unix box where I have no doubt
T> it's even more painful than it is on a Windoze box, as well as
T> configuring a printer on a Unix box, itself a recurring nightmare
T> of mine for years now since one night in the nineties when I got
T> caught in the crossfire between someone's Epson inkjet and their
T> Mandrake 7.somethingorother Linux.
O poor boy. It was a job for someone else indeed.
In the same time I got an HP720c and it come with no other drivers
than Mac and Windows ones. I feared I was SOL when I readed of some
guy that wrote a small program that was able to convert certain gs
output to byte sequences good to pilot the HP720c.
It was *easy* to put this program in the pipeline in the "printer
driver" script.
And was *easy* insert a2ps to shoot plain text directly to the printer.
Before, I used an Epson pinwriter (24 pin head). Again, never had
problems (unless it was dead slow). On the other hand printing
directly some plain text under Windwos...
T> Reexamining that "find" line it looks like it tries to
T> automatically "lpr" the file(s) found.
Looks like ???? Hey, it doesn't look like, it's wat it's mean to do!
T> That is cause for concern,
T> since I can easily see something like this going into Sorceror's
T> Apprentice mode and costing you a fortune in ink and paper if
T> there's either a misspelling or other mistake (easy enough to make
T> in a complex arcane command line like that one) or more
T> "refcard.ps" matches than you expected there'd be in the target
T> directory and its descendants.
You are not one good for the computers, I see.
The good thing in bash is that I can use the history to recall a
command line. So you can first see what find finds, and then rerun the
program (search results get cached, so there's an incredible boost of
speed).
Second. When you learn how useful *is* find used that way, you *don't*
do the mispelling or other mistakes (as a smart person, you first do
the dryrun).
Ah, you'll start thinking that those who find find syntax arcane are
jackass... You need a little to realize it was not this easy in the
beginning. The dark side of power.
--
/\ ___
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_____
//--\| | \| | Integralista GNUslamico
\/ e coltivatore diretto di Software
A Cesare avrei detto di scrivermi a fnvag@rat.vg
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 2007 12:31:28 +0200
From: Bjorn Borud <borud-news@borud.no>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <m3odj1y9hb.fsf@borud.not>
["Kjetil S. Matheussen" <k.s.matheussen@notam02.no>]
|
| Did you expect something specific before starting to read that book?
| Thats a failure. SICP is a book you should read just for pure
| pleasure.
I was told by a lot of people I consider to be intelligent that this
book would change how I think about writing software. it didn't. I
didn't really know what to expect, but after reading it I did feel
that its importance was greatly exaggerated.
| > these people seemed to be
| > completely disconnected from reality.
|
| Please don't write things like that without backing it up with some
| reason.
well, for one, Scheme lacked proper libraries for doing everyday
things, so when I tried to use it I found myself writing a lot of
library code that I shouldn't have had to deal with. but it is quite
long ago, so things might have changed since then.
-Bjørn
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 2007 12:35:00 +0200
From: Bjorn Borud <borud-news@borud.no>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <m3ir99y9bf.fsf@borud.not>
[Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com>]
|
| Some people might say the same thing about emacs. A lot of unix tools
| even. "Stubbornly insisting on being odd" appears to be a particularly
| prevalent character flaw among the geeknoscenti.
I think you are missing the point. you may find Emacs (and UNIX) to
be odd, and you consistently parade this around as a reason not to
even make an honest attempt at understanding how to use it (them). if
the oddness still eclipses usefulness once you've made a proper
attempt at understanding a tool, then the oddness is a problem. Emacs
(and UNIX) don't exhibit these characteristics for a great number of
people.
-Bjørn
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:43:46 +0200
From: "Kjetil S. Matheussen" <k.s.matheussen@notam02.no>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0706271237560.9895@ttleush>
On Wed, 27 Jun 2007, Bjorn Borud wrote:
> | > these people seemed to be
> | > completely disconnected from reality.
> |
> | Please don't write things like that without backing it up with some
> | reason.
>
> well, for one, Scheme lacked proper libraries for doing everyday
> things, so when I tried to use it I found myself writing a lot of
> library code that I shouldn't have had to deal with. but it is quite
> long ago, so things might have changed since then.
>
Things have probably changed a little, but the stuff in SISC isn't
specific for scheme, although a schemish language is used in the book.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:04:39 -0000
From: Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <1182942279.999992.200250@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 27, 4:18 am, Gian Uberto Lauri <s...@spammer.impiccati.it>
wrote:
[A very long, rambling, semi-coherent post]
> Strange. I am *NOT* a native english speaker and I think my Q.I. tends
> toward average from below...
That much is obvious.
> ...but refcard sound very useful to me, maybe is short for "reference car=
d" ?
Yes, but you'd have to be some kind of clairvoyant to realize "I know!
I'll do a search for "refcard.ps" on the off chance someone happens to
have made a reference card, called it "refcard", and chose the
Postscript format to record it in!" out of the blue.
> I admit. find is less intuitive. But the stuff Windows comes with does
> just that and nothing more. It will never suggest you that the long
> boring task expecting you can be solved in a completely automatic
> way with a little creative job.
And with one little typo, it's hello Sorceror's Apprentice mode...
> Emacs help was hypertextual when Dr. Watson plagued Windowd 3.11
> users...
Dr. Watson just plagued this WinXP user. Please don't mention Dr.
Watson again for a while, for the love of Christ.
> Splash, large miss.
This is usenet, not Battleship.
> You usually fire it to the local printer.
Yes, if you have one and care to blow through reams of paper and
gallons of ink every month by printing everything you encounter
instead of reading it on the expensive LCD monitor you got for such
purposes.
> T> enough. Trying to read anything serious and navigate in GSView is
> T> no picnic either.
>
> A refcard, my dear, is something that goes on an A4/Letter sheet and
> NEEDS NOT to be hypertextual.
I was being more general.
> With a PS file you can do just one thing, execute it. It's a program,
> did you know ?
For which you need an interpreter. Such as Ghostscript. Which is a
pain to install and a bigger one to configure, even on Windoze.
> Uh, I forget. For Windows users getting a PDF out of a PS or HTML or
> ASCII is not this easy unless they get some extra software (someone
> ported CUPS to Windows ?). Again, not an Emacs fault.
I wouldn't know CUPS if it dropped on my head. I think the same can be
said of most of the 3 or 4 non-expert unix users in the world.
> Stop guessing or all will know that all you know about Unix is that
> is a 4 letter word...
Yeah. Unix is a four-letter word alright.
> All the computer screen is devoted to your work, the sheet provides
> some extra "real estate" for the help information, a sort of double
> heading display. All you need to do is turn your eyes from the
> monitor, maybe your eyes and read the informations. It coudl happen
> that you need to flip the sheet. But you can keep both your work and
> the help text "ready at your fingertips", and this is useful indeed:
> you read the command keybinding, turn your eyes, type it and see the
> result and/or continue your work.
One small step backwards for a man, one giant leap...
> About money. Indeed ink/toner and paper costs. Electricity grows on
> the spark tree so aboundant in our forests...
This intrigues my younger brother. He wants to know how many moons are
in the sky and what color the sun is that your planet orbits. He's at
that phase where he's fascinated by astronauts, tales of alien worlds,
and things like that, you see...
> But PostScript printing on my '80 Epson printwriter or my HP720c with
> a Unix system with CUP is as easy as opening a browser, telling the
> system I have a HP720c plugged to the parallel port and voil=E0.
I'll bet. Something tells me the catch lies somewhere in "a Unix
system with CUP". Unless it's in "browser" instead. Something tells me
we're not talking about something that resembles Firefox and makes
navigation easy and intuitive here.
> In the same time I got an HP720c and it come with no other drivers
> than Mac and Windows ones. I feared I was SOL when I readed of some
> guy that wrote a small program that was able to convert certain gs
> output to byte sequences good to pilot the HP720c.
>
> It was *easy* to put this program in the pipeline in the "printer
> driver" script.
>
> And was *easy* insert a2ps to shoot plain text directly to the printer.
*Easy*. Maybe if you know all about the guts of how the printing
subsystem of the OS works. I doubt it's anything like that easy for
joe random who just wants to hit "print" and print the document
already and not have to spend ages learning about the internals of the
operating system first. In Windows, you plug it in and pick it from a
dialog (or use a disc that comes with the printer to do setup) and
print something. Voila! Out pops a document into the tray; no mess, no
fuss. Getting out your wrench and going at the plumbing shouldn't be
necessary; any more than I'd want to move into a new home and find I
needed to break out the tools and mess with the plumbing before the
toilet would flush or the kitchen tap spout water.
> Ah, you'll start thinking that those who find find syntax arcane are
> jackass... You need a little to realize it was not this easy in the
> beginning. The dark side of power.
Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your
destiny. Don't underestimate the power of the dark side!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:13:26 +0200
From: Gian Uberto Lauri <saint@spammer.impiccati.it>
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <874pkt1tp5.fsf@mail.eng.it>
>>>>> Long count = 12.19.14.7.16; tzolkin = 2 Cib; haab = 4 Tzec.
>>>>> I get words from the Allmighty Great Gnus that
>>>>> "T" == Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> writes:
T> On Jun 27, 4:18 am, Gian Uberto Lauri <s...@spammer.impiccati.it>
T> wrote:
T> [A very long, rambling, semi-coherent post]
>> Strange. I am *NOT* a native english speaker and I think my
>> Q.I. tends toward average from below...
T> That much is obvious.
So, did they never tell you "never argue with a fool, people could
misjudge who the fool is" ? And you stille replied to my post ?
--
/\ ___
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_____
//--\| | \| | Integralista GNUslamico
\/ e coltivatore diretto di Software
A Cesare avrei detto di scrivermi a fnvag@rat.vg
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:26:15 GMT
From: grue@mail.ru (Timofei Shatrov)
Subject: Re: The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding
Message-Id: <4682570a.76573817@news.readfreenews.net>
On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:04:39 -0000, Twisted <twisted0n3@gmail.com> tried to
confuse everyone with this message:
>
>> With a PS file you can do just one thing, execute it. It's a program,
>> did you know ?
>
>For which you need an interpreter. Such as Ghostscript. Which is a
>pain to install and a bigger one to configure, even on Windoze.
>
Lie. Ghostscript works out of the box on Windows.
--
|Don't believe this - you're not worthless ,gr---------.ru
|It's us against millions and we can't take them all... | ue il |
|But we can take them on! | @ma |
| (A Wilhelm Scream - The Rip) |______________|
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
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Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01)
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V11 Issue 588
**************************************
