Re: Rep:Re: Permission to submit HOWTO

[Gary Preckshot <garrell@inreach.com>]

"Anthony E. Greene" wrote:
> 
> This echoes a lot of what I've thought when reading your posts, though he
> put it more emotionally than I would have.
> 

You're both welcome to unsubscribe. If I let myself become
exercised over contrary opinions

1) I'd never improve as an author
2) I'd be making technical decisions based on emotion
3) I'd be unforgivably (in my view) self-righteous. It takes
an extremely self-righteous person to flame or be insulted.
Think about it. Being insulted is a two stage process. First
you experience self-righteous wrath, which implies you think
the other person is WRONG. How very egotistical. Second, you
undertake to lecture that person on the defects of their
personality, as defined by you. I don't flame, and you're
welcome to your opinions of me, my opinions, and life in
general.


> >Wrong. At least not all have that problem. Also, if you don't look at the
> >trees you might not notice if you're standing in a strand of poison oak,
> >which would put one of my aunts in the hospital for at least a week...

They still sing "Britannia rules the waves" in Albert Hall,
even though it's been 100 years since Britain fielded a
force anybody feared. General Maginot insisted on using
motorcycle couriers even though there was radio and he was
imposing a two day delay on dispatches. You're fighting the
last war.

> >I'm not a concert pianist, so emacs is a major pain in the butt. I'd
> >rather type twice as much than have to use a mouse twice as much. It's
> >quicker to not have to play with GUIs while I'm producing something.
> >

emacs is a pain because it forces the user to remember an
incredible number of arcane commands just to do simple
things. It's from the bad old days of "powerful" editors
like teco, of which my favorite memory was someone's
statement that a teco command looked like line noise. The
X-Windows version is a lot more palatable because it has
menus and you don't have to remember anything.

> >Not only is Word Perfect GUI (or cryptic from the keyboard in ways I find
> >worse than vi), but the sgml support isn't on Linux and it isn't Open
> >Source. I do LDP stuff for free on *my* time. Damned if I'm gonna use a
> >non Open Source tool to do so.

So choose your own poison.

> If you want to and build good
> >documentation, cool. Stop pissing and moaning, though, if I don't run out
> >to Gary's school of typing shit into a computer and do exactly the same
> >thing. 

I'm not pissing and moaning about that. I'm pissing and
moaning because the more advanced tools like layouts are not
accessible from limited editors. You do know what a layout
is, don't you?

> Also stop insulting me for doing things the way that I want.

You can feel insulted at any time you please. Consider it a
freebie.

> If my
> >end product sucks, send me bug reports and suggestions on how to improve
> >it. DON'T go off on me for not using the tools *you* like. Explaining that
> >they're better is OK, but insulting me because I'm not using them is
> >rediculous and I'm getting really fscking tired of it. I generally don't
> >flame people, but I also don't have people continuously insult me.

I'll have to add it to my list of little-known and ignored
talents. I'm very good at insulting "X". Why don't I care?
There are 6 billion people in the world. It's hardly an
accomplishment to insult one or two of them. A billion at
once, now that's another matter. That would take real
talent.


> >
> >True. My editor is vi. I'm pretty certain I can get vim to do much of what
> >you're talking about, but it requires I learn vim more than I have. To be
> >honest I've got much more important things to learn. One of which is how
> >sgml and xml functions. I actually need to know this, so doing stuff by
> >hand is a better way for me to go. If the tools were absolutely *perfect*,
> >I wouldn't need to know that, but they aren't.

I don't think vim can do much more than syntax highlighting
and automatic indenting, functions that are really good for
editing programs, but leave something to be desired for
sgml. You really don't want to know how sgml functions. If
you really do, study the DocBook DTD defining files from
Norman Walsh. The thing we're talking about is DocBook. You
can bounce off "DocBook: The Definitive Guide," but you'll
be spending a lot of time inferring function from a list of
tags. It has the tag hierarchy embedded in it, but
obfuscates the main issues like the purloined letter: hiding
it in plain sight. It never talks about layouts, and they're
the way you decimate a general DTD like DocBook to a subset
appropriate to your needs. Before I get attacked for being
non-standard, you use a subset of DocBook every time you
don't use everything in the DTD. Layouts just give you a
systematic way of defining subsets. Layouts are something
you'll never get with vi or vim.

> >
> >Not all of us need to know the markup languages, but some of us do or the
> >tools won't exist that allow the rest of you to glide along so easily
> >(which admittedly still doesn't appear to be the case here, so we need
> >more people who know markup ins and outs to build those tools you want).
> >
> >You've done quite a few things which I think are good. Pointing out and
> >proving that WP on m$ is viable was a good thing. I don't know if your
> >improvements to the H-H were good as I've not had time to evaluate them,
> >but your comments have certainly led to improvements in it as well as some
> >of the LDPs processes.

Thank you. See the threads on searching if you want to see
more. I've learned that DocBook is only the tip of the
iceberg.

> >
> >Stop calling those of us who use a system *you* don't want to use
> >heretics. If our end product is still good, who cares? If we have to work
> >twice as much to produce half of what you produce, what's it matter to
> >you? You're not paying us. We're all volunteers, so don't be insulting
> >about how we're doing it.

If you want to be insulted, feel free. Your end product may
not meet requirements for search and retrieval. I don't
really care how long it takes you to produce it, but when I
first came on this forum, I was deluged with paeans to sgml.
It turns out that all the wonderful things that were being
touted weren't being done, and because of use of out-dated
tools, weren't likely to get done. There are people working
on the problem, but there's a large ration of NIH leavened
with intentional ignorance. When I challenge that, people
get insulted.

> >
> >You have a very hard edge to how you put things. I don't know if you're
> >aware of that. It appears to me to be the real reason that you've pissed
> >people off. Not because you're "stirring the pot", BTW. Others could stir
> >the pot far more than you are without pissing people off. Geeks aren't
> >known for their "people skills" :), so I pretty well ignore the fact that
> >some people don't know how to say things nicely. Also, for the most part
> >I'm pretty tolerant of people who just don't realize they're being
> >assholes, BUT I don't like being insulted, especially for volunteer work
> >that I'm doing.

Being insulted starts with you. Nobody can insult you if you
don't want to be insulted. I could get insulted over your
self righteous tone. I don't choose to. If you think what I
say is wrong, then deal with the factual errors.

> >
> >I've publicly mentioned people shouldn't be down on you for using a non
> >Open Source, non-free editor, even one that I don't like and won't be
> >using. For the record, when I used to use word processors Word Perfect was
> >my wp of choice as I felt it was the best product I'd used. Since then
> >I've become proficient at vi and feel word processors suck and shouldn't
> >be used. Notice that I'm not constantly crucifying you for using one.

You are carrying your own cross voluntarily.

> >
> >I've tried to politely say that you shouldn't insult people for using an
> >editor *you* don't approve of, the same as I've mentioned others shouldn't
> >chastise you for using something *they* don't approve of. You've
> >consistently come back and insulted us (*me*) again and again. I'm sick of
> >it!

Feel free to be sick of it. It wouldn't get under your skin
if it didn't have a grain of truth.

> >
> >cioa,
> >
> >der.hans
> >
> >PS, please also remember that "rugged individualists" are the ones
> >credited for making the US great. They're also the ones who tend to be
> >credited for making large breakthroughs. And most importantly they *are*
> >the ones who've made Linux what it is today. I'm very grateful to the
> >"rugged individualists" who came before me and am honored to wear the same
> >title.

They're also the ones who blew up the Federal building in
Omaha City, and the ones who ran rampant im the Missouri
Breaks, or plunged Europe into flames many times. Wrong,
more often than right. We remember the good things and
forget the bad. Linux came about because other iconoclasts,
Dennis Ritchie, Richard Stallman, and Charles Goldfarb, to
name several, did their thing years ago. Who's Charles
Goldfarb? The inventor of sgml.

> >
> >PPS, before sending this out I went through the list mail that I haven't
> >gotten to to see if you'd apologized after people let you know that you've
> >insulted us *again*, but, alas, it wasn't there. You've helped a lot in a
> >short time. More than I have in a longer time period. That isn't a reason
> >to just put up with your manner, though. Please learn to at least publicly
> >be more tolerant of other ways of doing things.
> >--

I don't apologize for other people's thin skin. I apologize
for calling people names, and for deliberately telling
untruths. If you don't like my opinions, that's your
privilege. Don't expect me to be sorry if you have a little
snit. That's your problem.

Gary


--  
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to ldp-discuss-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org