Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!comcon!roy From: roy@comcon.UUCP (Roy M. Silvernail) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Something else you can't do on the Mac Summary: Picking a small nit.... Message-ID: <233@comcon.UUCP> Date: 2 Jan 90 21:04:00 GMT References: <1284@marlin.NOSC.MIL> <970@v7fs1.UUCP> <129727@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <75208@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Organization: Computer Connection - Anchorage, Alaska Lines: 50 In article <75208@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, gaynor@bat.cis.ohio-state.edu (Vampire) writes: > Actually, I find this another reason to hate IBMs, and the users who > have no concept of proportional fonts. I can't count the number of times that > I've downloaded a file to find that the person who wrote it used spaces > rather than tabs to line things up, or hit a at the end of each -line- > rather than at the end of each paragraph. We are, naturally, of different worlds, here, but it seems that someone should have mentioned this before... The ASCII _standard_ for textfiles is to end each _line_ with an . For a PC, this is defined as a /. I might complain of the reverse, were I to download a MacWrite file. In fact, I would face much harder problems, since MacWrite files are hardly unadorned text. > At least, if you're going to use > s to designate an eol, then use 2 s for end-of-paragraph. , indeed! In view of your disclaimer (shown below) that there is no one universal machine, I hardly expected this expression of melancholy. As a MacUser, you are doubtless aware that there are more similarities between a Mac and DesktopPublishing than there are between other architectures and a Mac. Why, then, do you bemoan that the rest of the world does not format its documents to your specifications? Proportional fonts plain don't exist in a _text_ document. In my work, I have occasion to communicate with a large number of differing platforms. Because of their diversity, I have learned how to translate between them (in terms of text files). Translator programs abound. (one such was posted to comp.sources this week) Tolerance and cooperation are what make the computerists of the world strong. Don't complain that the rest of the world treats you badly... learn to work _with_ other systems. After all, few users are going to change their platform simply to ease _your_ text-translation woes. > DISCLAIMER: I don't think that just one computer can solve all a user's woes. > There are things that each of the "mainstream" computers does better than its > competitors, and things that each does worse. I just find, that for me, the > Mac does more of what -I- want to do, and does it that way I want it done. My point, precisely. And my PC does what -I- want to do, the way -I- want it done. Including translate MacTextFiles to real ASCII. The difference is that I don't ask you to format it _for_ me. -- _R_o_y _M_. _S_i_l_v_e_r_n_a_i_l | UUCP: uunet!comcon!roy | "Every race must arrive at this #include ;#define opinions MINE | point in its history" SnailMail: P.O. Box 210856, Anchorage, | ........Mr. Slippery Alaska, 99521-0856, U.S.A., Earth, etc. |