On 7/28/24 10:05, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 28/07/2024 10:11, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 27 Jul 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 27/07/2024 21:46, D wrote:
>>>>> No matter how hard you idiots want to imagine something which is
>>>>> contrary to fact, it will never become reality.
>>>>
>>>> And yet the whole of the Liberal Left depends on the propsosition
>>>> that what you *imagine* to be true IS THE TRUTH.
>>>>
>>>> Bandar Logic.
>>>> "We all say it, so IT MUST BE TRUE".
>>>> Truly they have the Dewanee.
>>>
>>> Amen! That is what makes it so frustrating to try and debate them.
>>> They just shout louder and ignore what you say.
>>
>> the late great Sir Roger Scrution remarked that 'you cannot reason a
>> person out of a position he was not reasoned into in the first place'
>>
>> It is simple metaphysics, like choosing to believe in God because it
>> makes you feel better.
>>
>> And then its not *your* problem, its Gods problem innit? Ins'allah...
>>
>> Transgender metaphysics redefines behaviours as not something you have
>> a choice over or control of, but 'something you were born with' this
>> allowing people to evade all responsibility for it.
>>
>> A gay friend refutes this 'you are born with DNA:  the rest is *what
>> happens afterwards*'
>>
>> Transgenderism is classic Marxist metaphysics. It's always *someone
>> else's* fault. THEY are 'oppressing' YOU, and you have natural rights
>> (no one has natural rights) and your only recourse is to Join The
>> Revolution  to over throw THEM.
>
> Yes, and I think identity politics is a logical continuation of marxism.
> As capitalist made the working class obsolete, more or less, in the
> western world, new divisions need to constantly be created in order to
> get the us vs them + oppression threat, to rally the masses.

Capitalism has not made the working class obsolete but the
Capitalists have stolen political power from the working class by
simply purchasing political influence since the Kennnedy Era when
he reduced taxes for himself and other rich people. Reagan further
helped the rich who operated his puppet strings, at the expense of the
working class with so-called "Trickle-Down Economics". The only thing
that trickled down was excessive pollution.

>
> The thing is, that this eventually makes cooperation through one
> political party impossible when the nr of identities become
> unmanageable. So either it collapses, _or_ if it goes on to the bitter
> end, you end up with _individualism_ where every single individual is
> different, and therefore should be respect as an individual and human
> being, which kind of brings us to libertarianism.

I do not think what you seem to be saying is at all accurate.
We have one party willing to work with the other party but the other
party taking direction from their leader, a man who knows no shame,
despite 34 Felony convictions and continual lies about elections. He
lies again when he says he must win or the election is crooked and he
is just warming up for another coup attempt trying to arouse his
flaccid base with lies and "promises of never having to vote" again
if they vote this time.

>
>> Whereas the conservative ethic is summed up by the immortal saying I
>> first heard from my geography master as he put the whole class in
>> detention
>>
>> "Life is rough, tough and desperately unjust
>> Get used to it."

Life can be whatever you make it of it, something like
Heaven or something like Hell.

>
> This is the truth! This is one of the first things I teach my students
> to prepare them for working life. I also teach them not to play the
> victim card, and to work hard, extremely hard.
>
> The ones who get it usually perform very well and go on to a bright
> future within the field of IT.
>
>> Or as I inadvertently remarked to a failed suicide in the critical
>> assessment unit
>> "Life's a bitch' - and then you die".
>>
>> He laughed. I figure it helped...
>
> Are you a psychologist? Sounds like brilliant shock treatment instead of
> teaching the victim mentality.
People who deal with attempted suicides professionally usually call
them assholes.
People who deal with suicides personally may forget the sharp edges and
mourn the love that they projected on to an unsuitable person.
50 years of not forgetting the sharp edges helps.
still I mourn.
bliss and that is life as well.
--
b l i s s - S F 4 e v e r at D S L E x t r e m e dot com

Bobbie Sellers <blissInSanFrancisco@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>Some troll wrote,
>
> > Philosopher: I've had all the vaxxes to date, and they haven't killed
> > me.
>
> > Yet President Biden has Covid_19.
>
> Where the hell do you get your news?
> Demand faster delivery!
>
> Biden is back in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk
>running the country as well as he can with the Constitutional
>limitations on the Power of the Presidency.
>
> Oh and I have every Covid-19 vaccine available but I still caught a
>cold (or else am having an extreme exertional reaction).

Relf actually isn't a troll, he's a weirdo.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

Joel wrote:
> Bobbie Sellers <blissInSanFrancisco@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
>> Some troll wrote,
>>
>>> Philosopher: I've had all the vaxxes to date, and they haven't killed
>>> me.
>>
>>> Yet President Biden has Covid_19.
>>
>> Where the hell do you get your news?
>> Demand faster delivery!
>>
>> Biden is back in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk
>> running the country as well as he can with the Constitutional
>> limitations on the Power of the Presidency.
>>
>> Oh and I have every Covid-19 vaccine available but I still caught a
>> cold (or else am having an extreme exertional reaction).
>
>
> Relf actually isn't a troll, he's a weirdo.
>
didn't everyone know that

On 28/07/2024 22:31, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 7/28/24 10:05, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>

>>
>>> Whereas the conservative ethic is summed up by the immortal saying I
>>> first heard from my geography master as he put the whole class in
>>> detention
>>>
>>> "Life is rough, tough and desperately unjust
>>> Get used to it."
>
>     Life can be whatever you make it of it, something like
> Heaven or something like Hell.
>
No. It can't. Not for many people. For you in a privileged rich society,
perhaps.
But for manyt people life is bloody tough and they have very few
choices. The one choice everyone has however is whether to blame someone
else for it or take it on the chin

>
>>
>> This is the truth! This is one of the first things I teach my students
>> to prepare them for working life. I also teach them not to play the
>> victim card, and to work hard, extremely hard.
>>
>> The ones who get it usually perform very well and go on to a bright
>> future within the field of IT.
>>
>>> Or as I inadvertently remarked to a failed suicide in the critical
>>> assessment unit
>>> "Life's a bitch' - and then you die".
>>>
>>> He laughed. I figure it helped...
>>
>> Are you a psychologist? Sounds like brilliant shock treatment instead
>> of teaching the victim mentality.
>
>     People who deal with attempted suicides professionally usually call
> them assholes.
>     People who deal with suicides personally may forget the sharp edges
> and mourn the love that they projected on to an unsuitable person.
>     50 years of not forgetting the sharp edges helps.

There are different reasons for suicide.
A fact which seems to have escaped you.

>     still I mourn.
>
>     bliss and that is life as well.

--
"When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics."

Josef Stalin

On 28/07/2024 18:10, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
>> On 28/07/2024 14:24, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>>
>>>> On 28/07/2024 11:44, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>>> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:54:45 +0100
>>>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> A GUI is essentially if you are doing any sort of graphical work, even
>>>>>> typesetting needs some kind of WYSIWG interface.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tell that to Donald Knuth! TeX is perfectly usable without a WSYWIG
>>>>> interface so are all the runoff derivatives.
>>>>>
>>>> You do not produce pictures with texts using Tex.
>>>
>>> \begin{figure}[H]
>>> \centering
>>> \includegraphics[scale=0.65]{tabs/session/qseq66-session-tab.png}
>>> \caption*{Session Tab Under NSM}
>>> \end{figure}
>>>
>> Wow that really tells me how its going to look.
>
> Not really an issue. You can preview the PDF, edit the scale, save the
> .tex file, and the viewer will immediately update.
>
What viewer? We only have a text screen remember,. No GUI. No Pictures

>> Not really.
>
> You juss a hater :-D
>
Not really. I just think that bigotry and prejudice need to be called out.
There are things you simply cant do without a GUI.

Pretending that you can is simply denial

--
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

On 28/07/2024 19:44, Relf wrote:
> Philosopher: I've had all the vaxxes to date, and they haven't killed me.
>
> Yet President Biden has Covid_19.

He isn't dead yet either, although sometimes he appears that way

--
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

On 28/07/2024 20:44, geodandw wrote:
> On 7/28/24 14:44, Relf wrote:
>> Philosopher: I've had all the vaxxes to date, and they haven't killed me.
>>
>> Yet President Biden has Covid_19.
>
> Are you so clueless that you don't understand what odds are?

All medical intervention is a calculated risk.

But ArtStudents™ think it ought to be perfect. They only think in Boolean.

ArtStudent™: Is it safe?

Engineer™: How safe is it?

--
“But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an
hypothesis!”

Mary Wollstonecraft

On 28/07/2024 20:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> Several of us here consider a gratuitous GUI to be an imposition.

Well that's fine. There is something fairly nursery school about a GUI
interface to a computer when its overdone
On the other hand you cant drive a CAD program without one, unless you
are going full on solidisk style .

It's very difficult to draw with a keyboard.

--
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the
gospel of envy.

Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

On 28/07/2024 21:14, Peter Flass wrote:
> I use both, depending on what’s easier for the task at hand. It might
> possibly be easier to use command for some of the stuff I use the GUI for,
> but perhaps that might require me to memorize some obscure commands or
> options for something I may only do once in my lifetime. I would never want
> to go back to a non-GUI editor, although it is certainly possible.

I concur. I have access to both, and use whichever is more convenient at
the time.
Curiously for bookwriting I would happily go back to something like
wordstar.

--
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the
gospel of envy.

Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:15:41 -1000, Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> wrote
in <878qxl4c36.fsf@localhost>:

[snip, a very informative article, thank you. :) ]

Thank you, Lynn, read your article with interest.

The groff info document contains a section, "History", that I couldn't
find on its web page. (More on that below.) I've included it here,
and can be read with "info groff", which on my system is version 1.22.4.

1.2 History ===========

'troff' can trace its origins back to a formatting program called
'RUNOFF', written by Jerry Saltzer, which ran on the CTSS (_Compatible
Time Sharing System_, a project of MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) in the mid-sixties.(1) (*note History-Footnote-1::) The name
came from the use of the phrase "run off a document", meaning to print it
out. Bob Morris ported it to the 635 architecture and called the program
'roff' (an abbreviation of 'runoff'). It was rewritten as 'rf' for the
PDP-7 (before having Unix), and at the same time (1969), Doug McIlroy
rewrote an extended and simplified version of 'roff' in the BCPL
programming language.

In 1971, the Unix developers wanted to get a PDP-11, and to justify
the cost, proposed the development of a document formatting system for the
AT&T patents division. This first formatting program was a
reimplementation of McIlroy's 'roff', written by J. F. Ossanna.

When they needed a more flexible language, a new version of 'roff'
called 'nroff' ("Newer 'roff'") was written. It had a much more
complicated syntax, but provided the basis for all future versions.
When they got a Graphic Systems CAT Phototypesetter, Ossanna wrote a
version of 'nroff' that would drive it. It was dubbed 'troff', for
"typesetter 'roff'", although many people have speculated that it actually
means "Times 'roff'" because of the use of the Times font family in
'troff' by default. As such, the name 'troff' is pronounced 't-roff'
rather than 'trough'.

With 'troff' came 'nroff' (they were actually the same program except
for some '#ifdef's), which was for producing output for line printers and
character terminals. It understood everything 'troff' did, and ignored
the commands that were not applicable (e.g. font changes).

Since there are several things that cannot be done easily in 'troff',
work on several preprocessors began. These programs would transform
certain parts of a document into 'troff', which made a very natural use of
pipes in Unix.

The 'eqn' preprocessor allowed mathematical formulae to be specified
in a much simpler and more intuitive manner. 'tbl' is a preprocessor for
formatting tables. The 'refer' preprocessor (and the similar program,
'bib') processes citations in a document according to a bibliographic
database.

Unfortunately, Ossanna's 'troff' was written in PDP-11 assembly
language and produced output specifically for the CAT phototypesetter. He
rewrote it in C, although it was now 7000 lines of uncommented code and
still dependent on the CAT. As the CAT became less common, and was no
longer supported by the manufacturer, the need to make it support other
devices became a priority. However, before this could be done, Ossanna
died by a severe heart attack in a hospital while recovering from a
previous one.

So, Brian Kernighan took on the task of rewriting 'troff'. The newly
rewritten version produced device independent code that was very easy for
postprocessors to read and translate to the appropriate printer codes.
Also, this new version of 'troff' (called 'ditroff' for "device
independent 'troff'") had several extensions, which included drawing
functions.

Due to the additional abilities of the new version of 'troff',
several new preprocessors appeared. The 'pic' preprocessor provides a
wide range of drawing functions. Likewise the 'ideal' preprocessor did
the same, although via a much different paradigm. The 'grap' preprocessor
took specifications for graphs, but, unlike other preprocessors, produced
'pic' code.

James Clark began work on a GNU implementation of 'ditroff' in
early 1989. The first version, 'groff' 0.3.1, was released June 1990.
'groff' included:

* A replacement for 'ditroff' with many extensions.

* The 'soelim', 'pic', 'tbl', and 'eqn' preprocessors.

* Postprocessors for character devices, POSTSCRIPT, TeX DVI, and
X Windows. GNU 'troff' also eliminated the need for a separate
'nroff' program with a postprocessor that would produce ASCII output.

* A version of the 'me' macros and an implementation of the 'man'
macros.

Also, a front-end was included that could construct the, sometimes
painfully long, pipelines required for all the post- and preprocessors.

Development of GNU 'troff' progressed rapidly, and saw the additions
of a replacement for 'refer', an implementation of the 'ms' and 'mm'
macros, and a program to deduce how to format a document ('grog').

It was declared a stable (i.e. non-beta) package with the release of
version 1.04 around November 1991.

Beginning in 1999, 'groff' has new maintainers (the package was an
orphan for a few years). As a result, new features and programs like
'grn', a preprocessor for gremlin images, and an output device to produce
HTML and XHTML have been added.

(1) Jerome H. Saltzer, a grad student then, later a Professor of
Electrical Engineering, now retired. Saltzer's PhD thesis was the first
application for 'RUNOFF' and is available from the MIT Libraries.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

I'm interested in how well this history bleshes up with what others know,
especially since it doesn't appear here, the latest info document:

https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/groff.info.tar.gz

There is another, perhaps better-written, history in "man 7 roff".

Also, as part of this excursion, I learned about "groffer",
which (on my Linux Mint system) will format a man page as pdf and display
it using Xreader. (As someone mentioned previously, the advantage of
using a GUI for workstation users is that one gets to see the *bold*
and /italic/ fonts in all their glory, instead of terminal
replacements.)

TL;DR: roff is one of the oldest Unix applications, if not _the_
oldest -- and hats off to Lynn for preserving its history.

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.10.2 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
(And using Linux since the 1992 MCC "distribution"...
such as it was.)

On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 11:44:27 -0700 (Seattle), "Relf"
<Usenet@Jeff-Relf.Me> wrote:

>Philosopher: I've had all the vaxxes to date, and they haven't killed me.
>
>Yet President Biden has Covid_19.

Which he would not have if he had used Windows.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 13:36:09 -0400
geodandw <geodandw@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/28/24 06:39, Relf wrote:
> > Even if "your" child is 100% bought & paid for
> > ( i.e. you bought an egg & paid someone to carry it to term )
> > you can still be "tricked"* into allowing "gender-affirming treatment".
> > [ *: Elon Musk's word, spoken recently,
> > Re: Vivian Wilson, Musk’s 20-year-old transgender "daughter" ]
>
> What does this have to do with computer folklore?

Some religious nuts have xposted a troll-bait thread.
HRH.

FU to cola.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

In alt.folklore.computers vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:15:41 -1000, Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> wrote
> in <878qxl4c36.fsf@localhost>:
>
> [snip, a very informative article, thank you. :) ]
>
> Thank you, Lynn, read your article with interest.
>
> The groff info document contains a section, "History", that I couldn't
> find on its web page. (More on that below.) I've included it here,
> and can be read with "info groff", which on my system is version 1.22.4.
>
> 1.2 History ===========
>
> 'troff' can trace its origins back to a formatting program called
> 'RUNOFF', written by Jerry Saltzer, which ran on the CTSS (_Compatible
> Time Sharing System_, a project of MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology) in the mid-sixties.(1) (*note History-Footnote-1::) The name
> came from the use of the phrase "run off a document", meaning to print it
> out. Bob Morris ported it to the 635 architecture and called the program
> 'roff' (an abbreviation of 'runoff'). It was rewritten as 'rf' for the
> PDP-7 (before having Unix), and at the same time (1969), Doug McIlroy
> rewrote an extended and simplified version of 'roff' in the BCPL
> programming language.
>
> In 1971, the Unix developers wanted to get a PDP-11, and to justify
> the cost, proposed the development of a document formatting system for the
> AT&T patents division. This first formatting program was a
> reimplementation of McIlroy's 'roff', written by J. F. Ossanna.
>
> When they needed a more flexible language, a new version of 'roff'
> called 'nroff' ("Newer 'roff'") was written. It had a much more
> complicated syntax, but provided the basis for all future versions.
> When they got a Graphic Systems CAT Phototypesetter, Ossanna wrote a
> version of 'nroff' that would drive it. It was dubbed 'troff', for
> "typesetter 'roff'", although many people have speculated that it actually
> means "Times 'roff'" because of the use of the Times font family in
> 'troff' by default. As such, the name 'troff' is pronounced 't-roff'
> rather than 'trough'.
>
> With 'troff' came 'nroff' (they were actually the same program except
> for some '#ifdef's), which was for producing output for line printers and
> character terminals. It understood everything 'troff' did, and ignored
> the commands that were not applicable (e.g. font changes).
>
> Since there are several things that cannot be done easily in 'troff',
> work on several preprocessors began. These programs would transform
> certain parts of a document into 'troff', which made a very natural use of
> pipes in Unix.
>
> The 'eqn' preprocessor allowed mathematical formulae to be specified
> in a much simpler and more intuitive manner. 'tbl' is a preprocessor for
> formatting tables. The 'refer' preprocessor (and the similar program,
> 'bib') processes citations in a document according to a bibliographic
> database.
>
> Unfortunately, Ossanna's 'troff' was written in PDP-11 assembly
> language and produced output specifically for the CAT phototypesetter. He
> rewrote it in C, although it was now 7000 lines of uncommented code and
> still dependent on the CAT. As the CAT became less common, and was no
> longer supported by the manufacturer, the need to make it support other
> devices became a priority. However, before this could be done, Ossanna
> died by a severe heart attack in a hospital while recovering from a
> previous one.
>
> So, Brian Kernighan took on the task of rewriting 'troff'. The newly
> rewritten version produced device independent code that was very easy for
> postprocessors to read and translate to the appropriate printer codes.
> Also, this new version of 'troff' (called 'ditroff' for "device
> independent 'troff'") had several extensions, which included drawing
> functions.
>
> Due to the additional abilities of the new version of 'troff',
> several new preprocessors appeared. The 'pic' preprocessor provides a
> wide range of drawing functions. Likewise the 'ideal' preprocessor did
> the same, although via a much different paradigm. The 'grap' preprocessor
> took specifications for graphs, but, unlike other preprocessors, produced
> 'pic' code.
>
> James Clark began work on a GNU implementation of 'ditroff' in
> early 1989. The first version, 'groff' 0.3.1, was released June 1990.
> 'groff' included:
>
> * A replacement for 'ditroff' with many extensions.
>
> * The 'soelim', 'pic', 'tbl', and 'eqn' preprocessors.
>
> * Postprocessors for character devices, POSTSCRIPT, TeX DVI, and
> X Windows. GNU 'troff' also eliminated the need for a separate
> 'nroff' program with a postprocessor that would produce ASCII output.
>
> * A version of the 'me' macros and an implementation of the 'man'
> macros.
>
> Also, a front-end was included that could construct the, sometimes
> painfully long, pipelines required for all the post- and preprocessors.
>
> Development of GNU 'troff' progressed rapidly, and saw the additions
> of a replacement for 'refer', an implementation of the 'ms' and 'mm'
> macros, and a program to deduce how to format a document ('grog').
>
> It was declared a stable (i.e. non-beta) package with the release of
> version 1.04 around November 1991.
>
> Beginning in 1999, 'groff' has new maintainers (the package was an
> orphan for a few years). As a result, new features and programs like
> 'grn', a preprocessor for gremlin images, and an output device to produce
> HTML and XHTML have been added.
>
> (1) Jerome H. Saltzer, a grad student then, later a Professor of
> Electrical Engineering, now retired. Saltzer's PhD thesis was the first
> application for 'RUNOFF' and is available from the MIT Libraries.
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _
>
> I'm interested in how well this history bleshes up with what others know,
> especially since it doesn't appear here, the latest info document:
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/groff.info.tar.gz
>
> There is another, perhaps better-written, history in "man 7 roff".
>
> Also, as part of this excursion, I learned about "groffer",
> which (on my Linux Mint system) will format a man page as pdf and display
> it using Xreader. (As someone mentioned previously, the advantage of
> using a GUI for workstation users is that one gets to see the *bold*
> and /italic/ fonts in all their glory, instead of terminal
> replacements.)
>
> TL;DR: roff is one of the oldest Unix applications, if not _the_
> oldest -- and hats off to Lynn for preserving its history.
>

There's an almost identical history in this book by Brian Kernighan, "Unix, a
history and a memoir"
https://www.amazon.com.au/Unix-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/dp/1695978552

On 2024-07-28 5:31 p.m., Bobbie Sellers wrote:

>> The thing is, that this eventually makes cooperation through one
>> political party impossible when the nr of identities become
>> unmanageable. So either it collapses, _or_ if it goes on to the bitter
>> end, you end up with _individualism_ where every single individual is
>> different, and therefore should be respect as an individual and human
>> being, which kind of brings us to libertarianism.
>
>
>     I do not think what you seem to be saying is at all accurate.
> We have one party willing to work with the other party but the other
> party taking direction from their leader, a man who knows no shame,
> despite 34 Felony convictions and continual lies about elections.  He
> lies again when he says he must win or the election is crooked and he
> is just warming up for another coup attempt trying to arouse his
> flaccid base with lies and "promises of never having to vote" again
> if they vote this time.

Ah, this paragraph speaks volumes.

In your estimation, Democrats are "willing to work with the other
party." Provide evidence of them doing that as they spent the last eight
years calling Trump Hitler and blaming him for everything under the sun.

--
CrudeSausage
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king

On 2024-07-28 7:05 p.m., The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 28/07/2024 20:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> Several of us here consider a gratuitous GUI to be an imposition.
>
> Well that's fine. There is something fairly nursery school about a GUI
> interface to a computer when its overdone
> On the other hand you cant drive a CAD program without one, unless you
> are going full on solidisk style .
>
> It's very difficult to draw with a keyboard.

I used to do it all the time back when I made ANSI drawings. :)

--
CrudeSausage
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king

On Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:05:41 +0100
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> It's very difficult to draw with a keyboard.

One very popular 3D CAD program is based on doing just that, it's
called openscad and is based on a very effective language for describing CSG
construction of three dimensional objects.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/
For forms of government let fools contest
Whate're is best administered is best - Alexander Pope

The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 28/07/2024 18:10, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>>>>> On 28/07/2024 11:44, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tell that to Donald Knuth! TeX is perfectly usable without a WSYWIG
>>>>>> interface so are all the runoff derivatives.
>>
>> Not really an issue. You can preview the PDF, edit the scale, save the
>> .tex file, and the viewer will immediately update.
>>
> What viewer? We only have a text screen remember,. No GUI. No Pictures

Keep on moving the goalposts further and further from WYSIWYG!

>>> Not really.
>>
>> You juss a hater :-D
>>
> Not really. I just think that bigotry and prejudice need to be called out.

:-D

> There are things you simply cant do without a GUI.

No shit, Sherlock.

> Pretending that you can is simply denial

Never said anything about being able to do EVERYTHING in a terminal.
But you can create high-quality documents just using the terminal.

--
You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry.

Andreas Eder wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On So 28 Jul 2024 at 14:00, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 28/07/2024 11:44, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:54:45 +0100
>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A GUI is essentially if you are doing any sort of graphical work, even
>>>> typesetting needs some kind of WYSIWG interface.
>>> Tell that to Donald Knuth! TeX is perfectly usable without a WSYWIG
>>> interface so are all the runoff derivatives.
>>>
>> You do not produce pictures with texts using Tex.
>
> Oh you can. Have a look a Tikz.
> Once again you show, that you do not know what you are talking about!

I have used graphviz, but never heard of Tikz. Thanks for the information!

There are a lot of ways to generate certain classes of images from text, it
seems.

--
Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining
ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror
to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the
mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam
in 1959.
-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton
bad fiction contest.

Lynn Wheeler wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> writes:
>
>> Ahhh, good ol' RUNOFF. I used it in the 70's when it's input was
>> all UPPER-CASE text but mixed-case documents could be generated.
>
> <interesting info dump snipped>

For my Ph.D. dissertation I used a system called (IIRC) "DPS" or "Document
Processing System" on a DEC-10 computer. I entered the commands and text using
a line-oriented editor on a dumb terminal, and dumped the processed document as
a draft to a fast line printer that could print mixed case.

The final copy was dumped to some big-assed laser printer.

This was circa 1984.

--
You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself.

Charlie Gibbs wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 2024-07-28, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> A GUI is essentially if you are doing any sort of graphical work, even
>> typesetting needs some kind of WYSIWG interface.
>>
>> I need a GUI to watch videos, edit pictures, create 3D models, and
>> generate things like PCBs and printable plastic objects.,
>>
>> A simple windows style interface is perfectly reasonable.
>
> Reasonable, perhaps. Mandatory, definitely not.
>
> I don't need a GUI to watch videos or listen to MP3s. I run mpv
> from a command prompt - no GUI involved. (Note: I don't consider
> the window which opens to play a video to be a GUI - it's just an
> output medium.)
>
>> The point is the to make it simple, configurable and reliable so its a
>> tool, not an imposition.
>
> Several of us here consider a gratuitous GUI to be an imposition.
> I want to scream when I watch a user pointing and clicking and
> pointing and clicking and dragging and dropping and... oops,
> where did I accidentally drop that icon?... give me a minute
> to find the file again... while all the time proclaiming how
> _easy_ it is. Meanwhile, I've done what I need with a dozen
> keystrokes. And I resent anyone trying to take that away from me.

+1

Blessed be readline(3), history, cdargs....

--
Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug
than an old bird of paradise.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"

The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 28/07/2024 20:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> Several of us here consider a gratuitous GUI to be an imposition.
>
> Well that's fine. There is something fairly nursery school about a GUI
> interface to a computer when its overdone
> On the other hand you cant drive a CAD program without one, unless you
> are going full on solidisk style .

AutoCAD has a command-line.

> It's very difficult to draw with a keyboard.

I saw a guy do some cool stuff with a keyboard from the AutoCAD command-line.

--
Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried?
A: 9 edge down.

On Mon, 29 Jul 2024, CrudeSausage wrote:

> On 2024-07-28 5:31 p.m., Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>
>>> The thing is, that this eventually makes cooperation through one political
>>> party impossible when the nr of identities become unmanageable. So either
>>> it collapses, _or_ if it goes on to the bitter end, you end up with
>>> _individualism_ where every single individual is different, and therefore
>>> should be respect as an individual and human being, which kind of brings
>>> us to libertarianism.
>>
>>
>>     I do not think what you seem to be saying is at all accurate.
>> We have one party willing to work with the other party but the other
>> party taking direction from their leader, a man who knows no shame,
>> despite 34 Felony convictions and continual lies about elections.  He
>> lies again when he says he must win or the election is crooked and he
>> is just warming up for another coup attempt trying to arouse his
>> flaccid base with lies and "promises of never having to vote" again
>> if they vote this time.
>
> Ah, this paragraph speaks volumes.
>
> In your estimation, Democrats are "willing to work with the other party."
> Provide evidence of them doing that as they spent the last eight years
> calling Trump Hitler and blaming him for everything under the sun.
>

And not to forget their lawfare, and taking over government institutions
in a very undemocratic fashion.

On 29/07/2024 16:12, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
>> On 28/07/2024 20:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> Several of us here consider a gratuitous GUI to be an imposition.
>>
>> Well that's fine. There is something fairly nursery school about a GUI
>> interface to a computer when its overdone
>> On the other hand you cant drive a CAD program without one, unless you
>> are going full on solidisk style .
>
> AutoCAD has a command-line.
>
>> It's very difficult to draw with a keyboard.
>
> I saw a guy do some cool stuff with a keyboard from the AutoCAD command-line.
>

Its fine if everything you want to do has a simple mathematical description
Its totally useless if you want to draw a picture

A bit like 'Etchasketch'. Absolutely horrendous compared with pencil and
paper.

--
Canada is all right really, though not for the whole weekend.

"Saki"

The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 29/07/2024 16:12, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>
>>> On 28/07/2024 20:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>> Several of us here consider a gratuitous GUI to be an imposition.
>>>
>>> Well that's fine. There is something fairly nursery school about a GUI
>>> interface to a computer when its overdone
>>> On the other hand you cant drive a CAD program without one, unless you
>>> are going full on solidisk style .
>>
>> AutoCAD has a command-line.
>>
>>> It's very difficult to draw with a keyboard.
>>
>> I saw a guy do some cool stuff with a keyboard from the AutoCAD command-line.
>>
>
> Its fine if everything you want to do has a simple mathematical description
> Its totally useless if you want to draw a picture
>
> A bit like 'Etchasketch'. Absolutely horrendous compared with pencil and
> paper.

Hardly.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-BE44AE86-7638-48C9-BE5B-C1DF8E4C8808

Have You Tried: Streamline Tasks with Scripts

Do you find yourself repeating the same sequence of commands when working
on a drawing? Maybe, you:

- Insert a title block and define some layers as part of an initial drawing
setup process.
- Perform the same series of steps to cleanup client drawings.
- Need to update CAD standards defined in older drawings.

Rather than executing a series of commands from the AutoCAD user interface,
you can use script files to execute command sequences that rely on the same
input. A script is defined as a plain text file with the SCR extension.

--
You will have long and healthy life.

On Mon, 29 Jul 2024 08:57:36 -0000 (UTC), p.dean@gmx.com (Peter Dean)
wrote in <v87li0$djr0$1@dont-email.me>:

> In alt.folklore.computers vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:15:41 -1000, Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
>> wrote in <878qxl4c36.fsf@localhost>:
>>
>> [snip, a very informative article, thank you. :) ]
>>
>> Thank you, Lynn, read your article with interest.
[...]
>> 1.2 History ===========
[...]
> There's an almost identical history in this book by Brian Kernighan,
> "Unix, a history and a memoir"
> https://www.amazon.com.au/Unix-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/dp/
1695978552

Thank you; just bought the book and I'm reading it now. :)

--
-v