Dr. Dobb's dumps on RedCloth

[Bil Kleb]

As part of their "best Ajax" article:

http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/192203368?pgno=7

Welcome to the 1980s. Want to make text bold? You'll
have to put the characters * and * around it. For big
text, first type in h1. All that's missing is a DOS
prompt and a floppy disk. No thanks -- been there,
done that.

Later,

 

[James Britt]

As part of their "best Ajax" article:

http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/192203368?pgno=7

Welcome to the 1980s. Want to make text bold? You'll
have to put the characters * and * around it. For big
text, first type in h1. All that's missing is a DOS
prompt and a floppy disk. No thanks -- been there,
done that.

The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Besides, WYSIWYG is so '90s.

I much prefer Writely to Writeboard, but this reviewer so misses the
point it's laughable.

(I think the last good issue of Dr. Dobbs was the 30th anniversary one.)

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

The browser address bar is the DOS prompt. Welcome the the 21st C.
Besides, WYSIWYG is so '90s.

I much prefer Writely to Writeboard, but this reviewer so misses the
point it's laughable.

(I think the last good issue of Dr. Dobbs was the 30th anniversary one.)

Well now ... I agree with Dr. Dobbs in this case. Give me WYSIWYG or
give me HTML, but don't make me learn a *third* language to mark up text!

 

[Philip Hallstrom]

As part of their "best Ajax" article:

Well now ... I agree with Dr. Dobbs in this case. Give me WYSIWYG or
give me HTML, but don't make me learn a *third* language to mark up text!

Didn't you mean to say "don't make me learn a <b>third</b> language to
mark up text" ?



Sorry... I just couldn't help myself

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Didn't you mean to say "don't make me learn a <b>third</b> language to
mark up text" ?



Sorry... I just couldn't help myself

Uh ... yeah. Dang VT100 muscle memory.

Which reminds me ... I need to install a DOS emulator to run some Pascal
code.

 

[Joe Ruby]

Well now ... I agree with Dr. Dobbs in this case. Give me WYSIWYG or
give me HTML, but don't make me learn a *third* language to mark up
text!

Bleh, give me something BETTER than HTML, which is RedCloth.

Joe

 

[David Vallner]

Uh ... yeah. Dang VT100 muscle memory.

PWNED! *cough*

Besides. On which language to program a computer are you now? Or did you
stop counting around twenty? Nothing wrong with an alternate approach if
it's better. And Textile sure is less (sometimes much less) of a
wristkiller than raw HTML. I wonder which smart mind came up with the
angle bracket idea, and all the slashes aren't nice on the pinkies either.

I sometimes prefer Markdown or Mediawiki syntax, since Textile headings
are ghastly. But Textile's quick CSS modifiers for margins and paragraph
indentation are very neat, and on the whole it's a bit richer.

But Dr. Dobbs' point -is- valid, exposing someone to that by default,
heck, without a WYSIWYG alternative is just vile - even if it's
technically a very good alternative to HTML, it's an annoying We Know
What's Good For You Better Than You Do attitude to your users /
customers. (Even if I resent the DOS prompt / floppy disk oh-so-witty
wisecrack - you're a journalist, just review the damn software without
having to invent smartass ways to emphasise its suckiness when you run
out of factual observations and leave the dry sarcasm to people that are
actually funny.)

David Vallner

 

[James Britt]

David Vallner wrote:

But Dr. Dobbs' point -is- valid, exposing someone to that by default,
heck, without a WYSIWYG alternative is just vile - even if it's
technically a very good alternative to HTML, it's an annoying We Know
What's Good For You Better Than You Do attitude to your users /
customers.

It seems more like a "We're offering an option for people who prefer
Textile to WYSIWYG or hand-coded HTML, since no one is forced to use any
of these tools, and choice is good" attitude.

The reviewer missed this same point.

 

[David Vallner]

David Vallner wrote:



It seems more like a "We're offering an option for people who prefer
Textile to WYSIWYG or hand-coded HTML, since no one is forced to use any
of these tools, and choice is good" attitude.

The reviewer missed this same point.

Hmm. My phrasing of that was wrong. And probably what I was saying in
the first place too... Comparing a rather specialised text-sharing tool
to Word-inna-browser ones is indeed nonsense.

David Vallner

 

[Bil Kleb]

I sometimes prefer Markdown or Mediawiki syntax, since Textile headings
are ghastly. But Textile's quick CSS modifiers for margins and paragraph
indentation are very neat, and on the whole it's a bit richer.

FYI, RedCloth 3.x does (some) Markdown too,

http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/usingRedcloth3.html

but it's only mentioned in the tag line of,

http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/redcloth/

Regards,

 

[John Gabriele]

I sometimes prefer Markdown or Mediawiki syntax, since Textile headings
are ghastly. But Textile's quick CSS modifiers for margins and paragraph
indentation are very neat, and on the whole it's a bit richer.

FYI, RedCloth 3.x does (some) Markdown too,

[snip]

I've tried RedCloth, but IIRC it wouldn't let me tell it only process
Markdown (and not Textile markup) so I switched to BlueCloth. I got
the impression that, with RedCloth, Markdown is a bit of a 2nd-class
citizen.

The BlueCloth source looks to be fairly straightforward (maybe a
fairly direct recoding of John Gruber's own Perl version?), is only
one source code file, and is pretty well-commented.

---John

 

[Doug H]

David Vallner wrote:



It seems more like a "We're offering an option for people who prefer
Textile to WYSIWYG or hand-coded HTML, since no one is forced to use any
of these tools, and choice is good" attitude.

The reviewer missed this same point.

He stated a valid opinion, which you disagreed with and couldn't handle
so you spewed ad hominems and fud like "WYSIWYG is so '90s".
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/d8a6759e03c190c8?dmode=source&hl=en

 

[James Britt]

He stated a valid opinion,

No, it was an ill-informed opinion.

so you spewed ad hominems and fud like "WYSIWYG is so '90s".

An ad hominem is an attack on the person. I used parody to mock his
opinion, not him.

"[C]ouldn't handle" and "spewed"? Really; whose FUD'ing whom with the
ad hominems now?

 

[Doug H]

Actually what I said was:
"He stated a valid opinion, which you disagreed with and couldn't
handle
so you spewed ad hominems and fud like "WYSIWYG is so '90s". "

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Actually what I said was:
"He stated a valid opinion, which you disagreed with and couldn't
handle so you spewed ad hominems and fud like "WYSIWYG is so '90s". "

You said that, but that doesn't make it correct. The reviewer's
opinion is *not* correct or even remotely valid. (Frankly, Writeboard
doesn't present itself as a collaborative word processor as Writely
does. Writeboard is intended to fill a different niche entirely.)

-austin

 

[William James]

He stated a valid opinion, which you disagreed with and couldn't handle
so you spewed ad hominems and fud like "WYSIWYG is so '90s".

If "WYSIWYG is so '90s" is fud,
then "Welcome to the 1980s." is fud.
Can you comprehend that?

 

[John Johnson]

As part of their "best Ajax" article:
http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/192203368?pgno=3D7
Welcome to the 1980s. Want to make text bold? You'll
have to put the characters * and * around it. For big

As always, Different Strokes for Different Folks.

Applications like Word and, apparently, Writeboard aren't word processor=
s =

anymore. They are desktop publishers. People spend way to much time =

"prettying up" throw-away documents, such as interoffice memos (IOM), =

email, etc. E.g. A lot of people at my employer use Word to write an IOM=
=

announcing, say, someones promotion. 5k of text becomes 200k+ with the =

logo in the header, formatting commands and so on. Who knows how much ti=
me =

they spend changing paragraph indentation, kerning, line spacing, etc.

Very often I need something just a little more expressive than standard =
=

text. Perhaps a bulleted list, emphasis here and there, maybe links to =

external resources. I find RedCloth (in the form of Textile) to be =

excellent for this purpose.

In effect the DDJ article reviewers were looking for Word, and wound up =
=

bashing a markup language.

Regards,
JJ

-- =

Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

 

[Doug H]

You said that, but that doesn't make it correct.

Which is why I cited the article in which Britt said that quote. I can
also cite the ad hominem stuff, such as about how the original author
doesn't have a clue, and Dr. Dobbs journal sucks, etc., all of which
have nothing to do with his opinion.

 

[Doug H]

"Welcome to the 1980s." is fud.
Can you comprehend that?

Look it up. When you argue for one software/api/language whatever by
saying or implying without any basis in fact that another is out of
date, unpopular, etc., that is fud.

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Which is why I cited the article in which Britt said that quote. I can
also cite the ad hominem stuff, such as about how the original author
doesn't have a clue, and Dr. Dobbs journal sucks, etc., all of which
have nothing to do with his opinion.

Let me be a little more explicit:

Your statement that James "couldn't handle" a "valid opinion" is
incorrect on two levels.

1. Preston Gralla (the DDJ reviewer, whom I mostly respect) reviewed
Writeboard as if it were an AJAX word processor instead of a simple
wiki with insanely fast deployment. This is like faulting a 99 cent
ball-point pen because it isn't a gold-plated fountain pen. OF COURSE
IT ISN'T. It doesn't try to be, either. So, Preston's tossed off
statement about Writeboard is *not* a valid opinion. It's an
assessment of the wrong technology. Start with the wrong assumption,
you don't get a valid opinion.

2. James could handle it, if it were a valid opinion. Since it
weren't, it isn't necessary to handle it.

Basically, Doug, you muffed it here. Thanks for playing, haveanicedaybuhbye.

-austin