Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:22:42 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Computer problems at work

At 12:06 AM 6/21/05 -0400, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>Mike Bartman wrote:
>
>> Telnet originated on Unix a long time ago...well before anything
>> resembling "windows" on a computer screen.
>
>Telnet is far older than Unix.

Yeah?  Where did it come from then?

My impression was always that it was created as part of the Berkeley work
that led to TCP/IP and the whole "sockets" theory of network programming.
That would have been around 1970 and on what would eventually become BSD
Unix.

>> It would have been even nicer if the program had just done the more
>> usual "your license has expired" message, with info on how to renew
>> it if you wanted to use the program some more.
>
>Indeed.  A misleading error message is even worse than one that
>doesn't mean anything at all to you, e.g. the *enormous* hex dumps
>that Windows generates when it apologizes for having to "close".

You mean the "Dr. Watson" things?  Those are to allow the program's creator
to figure out why it died.  When you aren't the program's creator, and
aren't planning to give the output to him, they are a waste of time and
disk space...I always abort them.

>> Of course, if that's the main program you are using at work, running
>> on a 30 day trial license seems...odd.
>
>I think it was one of the hoops they had to jump through.  Getting a
>*permanent* license requires one's firstborn, and that typically takes
>nine months.

Ah.  It also requires assistance...does your tech support department
provide that?

>Software registration is like countries -- the smaller and crappier
>a country is, the more draconian, slow, elaborate, and onerous the
>paperwork necessary to visit there.

Ever see what it takes to get into the USA?  :-/

I went to Germany for a couple of weeks in the early 90s.  Entry into
Germany required getting off the plane.  Nobody even wanted to stamp my
passport...you just held it up as you walked past the bored immigration
agent.  In Berlin, though they had signs up all over telling you what you
could bring in and what you couldn't, nobody was there to check anything,
so you just walked past the customs counters and into the city.

Coming back to the USA was a very different deal.  Several hundred miles
out from the US ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) everyone was handed
forms to fill out, declaring what they were bringing into the country and
listing Draconian penalties for any errors or omissions.  There was a one
page form for citizens, and a multi-page form for foreigners.  Both were in
English, and no translators were provided, though the cabin attendants
offered to assist if necessary.  The German guy in the seat next to me was
having some problems figuring out what should be listed and what shouldn't.
 One in the airport there were long lines as each person was interviewed
and some had their luggage searched...though for citizens it was relatively
quick and amounted mostly to checking the passport and asking about why you
left the country.  It was all very cumbersome and officious...especially
compared to the ease with which one flies into Germany...the homeland of
the "your papers please!" mindset once upon a time.  Apparently we took
over that function after WWII.

>> ... or at least buy a copy for each employee.
>
>Only the proofreaders use this software.  There was actually an
>additional license a few months ago, but it seems to have died with
>the PC it was on.  If it was me, I wouldn't pay twice for one license,
>but I'm not in charge.

I'm with you there.  License management is a function often neglected at
most businesses, and when you aren't talking $50 consumer software, this
oversight can get expensive really fast.

>The Eclipse plain text output file has a hard return every 50 columns
>or so, has line numbers as part of the text, has every other line
>blank, indents everything, turns tabs into multiple blanks, and has
>footers on every page.  This was easy to undo with Emacs.  Maybe it's
>easy to undo with Word, but if so I have no idea how.  Does Word even
>have macros in the Emacs sense?

If reformatting in this way is your main use for the Eclipse software,
there are almost certainly cheaper alternatives that would work better
(i.e. without the bugs you describe).  A custom-written app that will take
a plain unformatted text file with a few tags embedded in it and turn it
into the format described above wouldn't cost more than one license for
Eclipse (if it really is thousands per license).  Then you could use any
text editor or word processor you like, save as plain text, run it through
the program to format it, and print the results or write them to a floppy
or whatever.  It sounds like you guys are trying to plant a flower garden
with a Caterpillar D5.

I believe Word does have macros, but I've never used them.  I believe this
because years ago there were a number of viruses that spread due to the
fact that Word was automatically executing any macros embedded in a
document when you opened the document...M$ changed that behavior after the
first such viruses hit the net...you are now (if you've upgraded your
software anyway) asked whether to execute the macros when you open such a
document rather than it being automatic.  There's info on one such virus here:

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1999-04.html

>Yes, and those input plain text files look completely different:
>Every paragraph is on just one long line, there are no blank lines,
>there are no footers, there are no line numbers, and there are tabs
>before and after each speaker identification or Q or A.

I'm guessing that emacs has enough power in its macros to let you turn that
into your desired output format...if someone were to write an input or
output filter macro.  Run emacs on Linux machines, or get the Windows
version of micro-emacs, and you could eliminate those multi-thousand dollar
licenses as well as most of your bug-driven aggravations with Eclipse.
Would probably be easier to do that than to write a specialized program.  I
know it could be done with TPU on OpenVMS, and emacs is at least as
powerful as TPU.  That would let you guys fix problems too...without having
to depend on another company getting around to it.

Just something to consider, but if your place is like most that I've worked
at, the guys making the decisions about what to use are almost never those
who have to use it, and often don't really know much about the available
options anyway.  They just get whatever they think everyone else is
using...which is how Windows has survived.

It's also possible that your customers insist on this particular software
as part of the contracts...silly, since it's the format that they really
care about, not what created it, but sillier things have happened.

-- Mike B.
--
You can lead a horse to water, and if you can get him to float on his back,
call me!!