WYSIWIS
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It is a bit humorous: the "What You See Is What I See" idea .. and its
little brother WYSIWYG, but there is also an interesting point to be made. It seems to be _hard_ to obtain! This is one of the reasons, IMHO, that twitter is so popular. I've started using it quite a bit simply because it _is_ so readable and very fast to do so. And it definitely has the greatest info content per sq. in. of any media I'm aware of. On thinking more about it, the chief problem I have with formatting in email is that our various machines and their apps have absurdly different ways of setting these things. So when I use GMail's web-mail system, it allows four text sizes, tiny to huge. I have absolutely no idea how these translate to your screen. I've resorted to creating images of email, sending it to the sender, and asking "is this what you meant me to see"? and gotten a horrified, Gawd No response. What I find is Silos of Usage: i.e. folks on Windows running Exchange will agree between themselves. GMail-ers ditto. Mac mail.app-ers too. Oh, and naturally Twitter folk. And naturally the Unformatted Text folk, bless them. Maybe we should have an agreed upon style that we all share and a few Windows, Mac, Linux hipsters transmit instructions on how to obtain that style with each of the Silos? -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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I don't think so, Owen. I'd much rather listen to people bitch & whine about this. So entertaining. Almost as much fun as listening to people bitch & whine about Google killing off Reader. --Doug On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 9:23 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: It is a bit humorous: the "What You See Is What I See" idea .. and its Doug Roberts
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Two things come to mind on this topic:
Tower of Babel Uncanny Valley (I hope my indentation, use of Case and parenthesis didn't throw anyone off too far!) When the Web was young, Print Designers went simply *apeshit* over this new HTML thing, in both senses of the term. Some had a great good time playing with all the possibilities but most just got surly about losing the precise control they had come to expect from print. Designers used to *literally* attend a press check to make sure that what they specced into the camera and typographic work *was* exactly what they wanted... and sometimes there would be modest changes made on the spot while the presses idled in the background. I remember it being a perq of the job, though not without it's own stress, and a good "closure". A trip to Denver or San Francisco or New York at the end of a finished job, and once the press-check was done and the presses started rolling, you didn't have to worry about someone saying... "oh.. one more thing!". The client was usually at the press check too, so if they saw something *after* the print run was done, they just got tight lipped and held their tongue. I think the apparent ease and convenience of making changes was the BANE of designers once WYSIWIG got rolling. An excuse for clients to apply "late binding" to content... run their own deadline right up to the press deadline and leave it to the designers to incorporate last minute changes hours before it went to press. I think it was *this*, not the challenges of learning newfangled computers, that drove many old school print designers out of the Biz. As for WYSIWIS... this has been a problem with *color* forever, and myriad strategies have been adopted to mitigate it, from the Pantone(tm) color specification system to elaborate attempts to resolve the mechanical/optical as well as *perceptual* differences between reflective (print) and emissive (computer screens) and between additive and subtractive color. And referencing the "uncanny valley"... getting it "almost right" can be more disturbing than merely "in the ballpark". > It is a bit humorous: the "What You See Is What I See" idea .. and its > little brother WYSIWYG, but there is also an interesting point to be > made. It seems to be _hard_ to obtain! > > This is one of the reasons, IMHO, that twitter is so popular. I've > started using it quite a bit simply because it _is_ so readable and > very fast to do so. And it definitely has the greatest info content > per sq. in. of any media I'm aware of. > > On thinking more about it, the chief problem I have with formatting in > email is that our various machines and their apps have absurdly > different ways of setting these things. > > So when I use GMail's web-mail system, it allows four text sizes, tiny > to huge. I have absolutely no idea how these translate to your > screen. I've resorted to creating images of email, sending it to the > sender, and asking "is this what you meant me to see"? and gotten a > horrified, Gawd No response. > > What I find is Silos of Usage: i.e. folks on Windows running Exchange > will agree between themselves. GMail-ers ditto. Mac mail.app-ers > too. Oh, and naturally Twitter folk. And naturally the Unformatted > Text folk, bless them. > > Maybe we should have an agreed upon style that we all share and a few > Windows, Mac, Linux hipsters transmit instructions on how to obtain > that style with each of the Silos? > > -- Owen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Also surprised Owen hasn't brought Markdown into the mix here. Seems like the perfect ASCII/monospace style for meaningful formatting.
On Mar 17, 2013, at 10:27 AM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: > Two things come to mind on this topic: > Tower of Babel > Uncanny Valley > > (I hope my indentation, use of Case and parenthesis didn't throw anyone off too far!) > > When the Web was young, Print Designers went simply *apeshit* over this new HTML thing, in both senses of the term. Some had a great good time playing with all the possibilities but most just got surly about losing the precise control they had come to expect from print. Designers used to *literally* attend a press check to make sure that what they specced into the camera and typographic work *was* exactly what they wanted... and sometimes there would be modest changes made on the spot while the presses idled in the background. > > I remember it being a perq of the job, though not without it's own stress, and a good "closure". A trip to Denver or San Francisco or New York at the end of a finished job, and once the press-check was done and the presses started rolling, you didn't have to worry about someone saying... "oh.. one more thing!". The client was usually at the press check too, so if they saw something *after* the print run was done, they just got tight lipped and held their tongue. I think the apparent ease and convenience of making changes was the BANE of designers once WYSIWIG got rolling. An excuse for clients to apply "late binding" to content... run their own deadline right up to the press deadline and leave it to the designers to incorporate last minute changes hours before it went to press. I think it was *this*, not the challenges of learning newfangled computers, that drove many old school print designers out of the Biz. > > As for WYSIWIS... this has been a problem with *color* forever, and myriad strategies have been adopted to mitigate it, from the Pantone(tm) color specification system to elaborate attempts to resolve the mechanical/optical as well as *perceptual* differences between reflective (print) and emissive (computer screens) and between additive and subtractive color. And referencing the "uncanny valley"... getting it "almost right" can be more disturbing than merely "in the ballpark". >> It is a bit humorous: the "What You See Is What I See" idea .. and its >> little brother WYSIWYG, but there is also an interesting point to be >> made. It seems to be _hard_ to obtain! >> >> This is one of the reasons, IMHO, that twitter is so popular. I've >> started using it quite a bit simply because it _is_ so readable and >> very fast to do so. And it definitely has the greatest info content >> per sq. in. of any media I'm aware of. >> >> On thinking more about it, the chief problem I have with formatting in >> email is that our various machines and their apps have absurdly >> different ways of setting these things. >> >> So when I use GMail's web-mail system, it allows four text sizes, tiny >> to huge. I have absolutely no idea how these translate to your >> screen. I've resorted to creating images of email, sending it to the >> sender, and asking "is this what you meant me to see"? and gotten a >> horrified, Gawd No response. >> >> What I find is Silos of Usage: i.e. folks on Windows running Exchange >> will agree between themselves. GMail-ers ditto. Mac mail.app-ers >> too. Oh, and naturally Twitter folk. And naturally the Unformatted >> Text folk, bless them. >> >> Maybe we should have an agreed upon style that we all share and a few >> Windows, Mac, Linux hipsters transmit instructions on how to obtain >> that style with each of the Silos? >> >> -- Owen >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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No, WordStar was the perfect ASCII/monospace style tool. On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote: Also surprised Owen hasn't brought Markdown into the mix here. Seems like the perfect ASCII/monospace style for meaningful formatting. Doug Roberts
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In reply to this post by Joshua Thorp
+1
On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote: > Also surprised Owen hasn't brought Markdown into the mix here. Seems like the perfect ASCII/monospace style for meaningful formatting. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Yet Another, Tower of Babel, Cambrian Explosion
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In reply to this post by Joshua Thorp
Josh sed:
> Also surprised Owen hasn't brought Markdown into the mix here. Seems like the perfect ASCII/monospace style for meaningful formatting. > The nice thing about "standards" is we have so many to choose from! - Andy Tanenbaum ( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum ) Markdown: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/index.text It strikes me as somewhat less awkward than HTML for *reading* and just about like Wiki markup and not that different from the more-specialized formats that support Javadoc or Doxygen. I'd love to see a taxonomic chart of the myriad formal language specs out there. If not the "tower of Babel" then perhaps the Cambrian Explosion? Here we go on the rant! There is a reason that the CS/CE community has the idiom "Yet Another". Nothing (anyone else has done) is ever good enough for us, so we analyze what has been done down to the gnats ass, pick a couple of distinguishing characteristics and then conjure a *whole new system* that meets this slightly different set of requirements. "Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his christmas pie. He stuck in his thumb, pulled out a plum, and said 'Oh what a good boy am I!'" Referencing the Cambrian Explosion, this might very well be what is going on both with text formatting and Google. Evolution seems to depend more on draconian *pruning* than on speciation, though I guess they go hand in hand. Google's aggressive pruning of it's own services (up to and including the Nexus 4 and it's more demanding bleeding-edge "fans", now fondly known as "Dougs"?) is just part of the froth of "life itself" climbing the entropy gradient, expelling sub-optimal designs as "reaction mass" to maintain steady acceleration up that slippery slope. I guess I consider minimally formatted (caps, punctuation, spaces, LF/CR) a pidgen ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin ) lingua franca ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca )... and the additional markup like my own favorite *bold* and _italics_ or "scare quotes" and SHOUTING just a little extra color and spice in the lingo, dontcha kno mon! My understanding/belief of culture and language is that the interfaces between peoples of different cultures where such pidgen languages thrive represent a great deal of richness and complexity *because* they are so simple and context-dependent. It seems as if most of us here are yearning for our favorite _pidgen_ to become a proper _Creole_ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole ). Of course I could be wrong, that's just my opinion! - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
I wrote my first novel 30-odd years ago using WordStar on a NorthStar Horizon Z80A CP/M machine. Which was fortunate, because it made it relatively easy 30-odd years later when I was finally ready to get it published. Fortunately I had enough foresight back then to push a copy up to one of my Unix machines so that I could keep it in a retrievable archive. When I was ready to face it again I just had to strip out all the WS dot commands and reformat the text in a more modern text editor. Oh, and completely rewrite it.
On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: +1 Doug Roberts
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Speaking of color, and humorous variations on WYSIWIG, my favorite is WYSIWIP, which said that (pre-Windows, DOS) Microsoft programmers drink Coca Cola, whereas Mac programmers drink Mountain Dew: Coca Cola goes in brown and comes out yellow, whereas Mountain Dew goes in yellow and comes out yellow (What You See Is What You Pee).
:-0 Gary Mac programmers drink On Mar 17, 2013, at 11:27 AM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: > > As for WYSIWIS... this has been a problem with *color* forever, and myriad strategies have been adopted to mitigate it, from the Pantone(tm) color specification system to elaborate attempts to resolve the mechanical/optical as well as *perceptual* differences between reflective (print) and emissive (computer screens) and between additive and subtractive color. And referencing the "uncanny valley"... getting it "almost right" can be more disturbing than merely "in the ballpark". ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: Yet Another, Tower of Babel, Cambrian Explosion
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Well, here's the puzzler for me: Why is CSS an entirely different syntax than JSON or even HTML?
Fail! I guess Sass/Less may get close, as well as CoffeeKup http://coffeekup.org/ which just sez: WTF, lets just mash them all up, no prob.
I would like a markdown equivalent to CSS. Seriously. Could anyone think about it a bit and suggest how it'd go? JSON is the closest I can get.
-- Owen
On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: Josh sed: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: Yet Another, Tower of Babel, Cambrian Explosion
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CSS is an extension of HTML and is confined to HTML element
attributes.
JSON is a generic data interchange format (DIF) LESS and SASS are preprocessors that programmatically generate 'static' CSS but PHP, etc. can do that too if you care to write it. Perhaps to answer your question they were all developed by different inhabitants of the Tower but you knew that. It seems to me that a) extra layers or preprocessors just make development and debugging harder and b) JSON is a rebellion against XML as a DIF. BTW why are all serious coding languages and tools written in English? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_languages. Robert C On 3/20/13 9:24 PM, Owen Densmore
wrote:
Why is CSS an entirely different syntax than JSON or even HTML? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: Yet Another, Tower of Babel, Cambrian Explosion
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
I don't do much web development, but it seems to me that it would be better to treat HTML/CSS (and maybe even JavaScript) as the assembly language of the web. Let the browser digest it, humans shouldn't have to look at that cruft. Write your web content in whatever you're comfortable with (Python, JavaScript. and dare I say it - Lisp or Clojure), and have whatever web server/plugin you deploy to do the translation. If the web hosting service doesn't accommodate your preferred language, then find another web hosting service. Of course, some web content is already this way - most people who use WordPress or Blogger don't end up writing that much HTML - they use a GUI builder to customize it, and/or change its appearance with themes.
;; Gary On Mar 20, 2013, at 10:24 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: Well, here's the puzzler for me: Why is CSS an entirely different syntax than JSON or even HTML? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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