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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!news.jhu.edu!aplcenmp!night.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!gatech!news.cse.psu.edu!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sesqui.net!uuneo.neosoft.com!web.nmti.com!peter From: peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: 22 Apr 1996 17:04:53 GMT Organization: Network/development platform support, NMTI Lines: 37 Message-ID: <4lge7l$nvl@web.nmti.com> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <tporczykDptpAL.8uG@netcom.com> <4l324m$rjc@web.nmti.com> <317AF906.592C@xeta.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sonic.nmti.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.misc:813 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46763 In article <317AF906.592C@xeta.com>, Tom Crofford <tomc@xeta.com> wrote: > Peter da Silva wrote: > > I don't know. I find Word and Word Perfect (the 'approved' programs here) > > so hostile that I use them only when absolutely required. I can't imagine > > doing all my documentation in them... I'd rather write in raw HTML. I > > don't have time to play with tools like that (and that's what people do > > with them... you get endless macdinking of fonts and spacing and layout > > simply because you *can* when it just doesn't *matter*). > Millions of people successfully use Word and Wordperfect all day, every > day. Certainly. Millions of people successfully use all sorts of bizarre technologies quite successfully. > I have personally > written numerous manuals with Word. One of them was over 400 pages long. I'm sure you have. I can always tell when a manual has been written with programs like Word... they have incomplete headers or footers, they don't use a consistent style to distinguish code samples and running text, and so on. Because to get a consistent style requires more effort than it's worth. Semantic markup is all but impossible in a word processor. They provide splendid tools for detailed and accurate formatting of visual elements, but that's not the facility that serious document preparation needs. > Serious users of Word > do not 'endlessly macdink' with their fonts. No. They simply refuse to deal with the problem. -- Peter da Silva (NIC: PJD2) `-_-' 1601 Industrial Boulevard Bailey Network Management 'U` Sugar Land, TX 77487-5013 +1 713 274 5180 "Har du kramat din varg idag?" USA Bailey pays for my technical expertise. My opinions probably scare them