From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Dec 14 16:42:57 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA10892 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Mon, 14 Dec 1998 16:42:57 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA10886 for ; Mon, 14 Dec 1998 16:42:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id LAA27457; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:12:42 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id LAA15477; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:12:26 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19981215111225.O17075@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:12:25 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Sue Blake , "Jason C. Wells" Cc: FreeBSD-chat , Ken Keeler Subject: Re: Smaller, Dedicated tools and Greg's Daemon News Article References: <19981214083023.C2587@freebie.lemis.com> <19981214201953.52678@welearn.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <19981214201953.52678@welearn.com.au>; from Sue Blake on Mon, Dec 14, 1998 at 08:19:53PM +1100 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Monday, 14 December 1998 at 20:19:53 +1100, Sue Blake wrote: > On Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 11:29:40PM -0800, Jason C. Wells wrote: >> I spent the entire weekend doing battle with Microsoft products. We >> produced a 400 page report using the bastard Word 97. Easily 20 full man >> hours were spent trying to figure why there were big red X's where >> pictures used to be and recovering files that were corrupted during >> crashes. We could not put together more than 20MB/200 pages of text before >> complete instability occured. >> >> What a horrible waste of time. >> >> Oh yeah, don't forget that little paper clip sucker in the right corner. >> Good thing I didn't have my gun. I'da shot the futhermocker right in his >> litte winky eye. >> >> Imagine trying to put together "The Complete FreeBSD" in this environment. >> >> The point is, I know how well small dedicated tools work. I haven't >> learned the text editing tools because I was never motivated to do so. >> >> A recent email chat combined with Greg's article have completely convinced >> me that I should learn a little bit more programming in order to make my >> life easier. >> >> Emacs, Tex, here I come! > > Greg will scowl from his perch, but even the simplest programming is > beyond me at the moment. There are other ways, though. First a tale > of woe. [Illustrative story omitted] No, you don't understand. Well, I suspect you do understand, but you're pretending not to. The article in question was not about programming, it was about control. You have wrested control in the manner I was advocating. If you had needed a little program (never played with PERL?), you could have written one to play around with your RTF stuff, and you probably would have. The thing is that the *ability* to program is part of your control. I think I'll add this story to the followup in the next Dæmon's advocate article. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message