Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!grapevine!koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com
From: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: FORM, nice but...
Message-ID: <34894@grapevine.uucp>
Date: 4 Dec 89 17:13:38 GMT
References: <274@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <1103891319123100@thelake.UUCP>
Sender: news@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM
Reply-To: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Milpitas, CA
Lines: 42

In article <1103891319123100@thelake.UUCP> pwcs.StPaul.GOV!stag!thelake!steve writes:
>Demanding that ANY written material be "politically correct" in the mind
>of every reader is impossible.

I thought that request was a bit odd, too.  I assume (I can't read the docs
either; more below) that the original poster was objecting to the use of the
genderless "he."  Well, whether he likes it or not, that's the way English
is.  Substituting "he/she" (or "she/he") all over the place isn't a good
solution.

>I have a different problem with the Form documentation: TeX. Seriously, is
>a 430-kilobyte DVI file an efficient method of distributing docs?
>Especially since the number of STs actually running TeX is mighty small.

Heck, I couldn't even print the thing out on my Sun.  Distributing straight
TeX documentation would be fine, as the TeX source is at least very human-
readable, but DVI struck me as a bit silly as well.  (If you're wondering
why I posted it anyway, I have a hands-off policy about that sort of thing.)
If someone has the software to convert the thing into PostScript, please
mail me a copy.  I don't have time to set up all the TeX stuff on my machine,
and as Sun is a *roff house, nobody around me has it already.

>On a (sort of) related subject, does anybody else find the shar'ed source
>code in comp.sources.atari.st to be a constant source of trouble? 
>UUDecoding a .ZOO file
>is *so* much simpler.

When I started moderating comp.sources.atari.st, I put all the sources in
uuencoded arcfiles (check the early volume 1 entries on panarthea).  I got
about twenty complaints from people at various sites, demanding that I
use shar instead for various reasons.  Since that seemed to be what the
public wanted, I switched over.  Frankly, shar is often more of a pain for
me, too, as (posting rules notwithstanding) sources are frequently sent to
me as arc or zoo files, which I have to repack as sharfiles.  (Such sources
tend to sit in my queue for a while.)

What do people think?  Should I switch back to uue'd sources?

---
"                                                  !" - Marcel Marceau
Steven Grimm		Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st
sgrimm@sun.com		...!sun!sgrimm