OT: spacing of code in Google Groups

[Grant Edwards]

Peter Hansen wrote:

[...]

But the whole argument is fairly moot... I've needed a rectangle
operation only once in the last ten years, and if I hadn't known at
the time that my editor could do it (and spent about half an hour
figuring out how it worked), I could have written a utility to
do the job faster if I'd been using Python at the time...

Or even used cut(1) from the command line.

IIRC, that was the first thing suggested. Using rectangular
operations in an editor was a ways down the list of alternatives.

 

[Peter Hansen]

Or even used cut(1) from the command line.

Or myybe not

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

c:\>cut
'cut' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

-Peter

 

[Grant Edwards]

Or even used cut(1) from the command line.

Or myybe not

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

c:\>

That's not a command line.

 

[Alex Martelli]

Why the heck would I ever have to do "rectangle operations" on a
regular basis? ;-)

Well, given that all editors are cat equivalent[*], you don't _have_
to use any of their features

This "cat equivalent" thing is a red-herring. I can rarely type more

I tried offering a red herring to my cat to check this out, and, sure
enough, she indignantly refused it and miaowed loudly for less smelly
food. So, you may have a point here.


Alex

 

[Peter Hansen]

I tried offering a red herring to my cat to check this out, and, sure
enough, she indignantly refused it and miaowed loudly for less smelly
food. So, you may have a point here.

Going totally off-topic (except for those who define anything
that ridicules Bill Gates as inherently on-topic), just as
I read your reply I saw the following two "related" articles
as I was reading some news online:

On red herrings (and silly Bill screwing up another demo):
http://www.redherring.com/Article.a...es+at+CES&sector=Profiles&subsector=Companies

On cats (bouncing dead ones, anyway):
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuo...tfh79805_2005-01-06_17-20-03_n06358600_newsml

(My reticular formation must be working fine today...)

-Peter

 

[Jacek Generowicz]

Why the heck would I ever have to do "rectangle operations" on a
regular basis? ;-)

Well, given that all editors are cat equivalent[*], you don't _have_
to use any of their features

This "cat equivalent" thing is a red-herring. I can rarely type more
than a line of code without making a typographical error. Sometimes
I won't catch that error until a bit later. Using "cat" alone would
provide me little opportunity to fix the error, so I would never
be able to produce a working program longer than a few lines.

And have you ever tried to write a serious program on a Turing Machine?

This is exactly my point: Turing Equivalence is only theoretical. In
practise some languages are more powerful than others. Same goes for
editors.

But the whole argument is fairly moot... I've needed a rectangle
operation only once in the last ten years,

Whereas I use rectangle operations, on average, a few times every day
.... because they are part of my standard toolbox, they suggest
themselves as the right solution to many a problem.

There are plenty of programmers out there who "have only needed
classes once in the last ten years".

More powerful editors, just like more powerful languages, can make
their users more productive. Complicated editors, just like
complicated programming languages, can make their users less
productive[*]. The optimal point in complexity-expressiveness space
will be different for different individuals, be it for editors or
programming languages.


[*] I suspect that there are a few around here who would interpret
this as an indictment against the direction in which Python is
going

 

[JanC]

Peter Hansen schreef:

Or even used cut(1) from the command line.

Or myybe not

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

c:\>cut
'cut' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Microsoft Windows 2000 [versie 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\>cut
cut: u moet een lijst van bytes, tekens, of velden geven
Probeer `cut --help' voor meer informatie.


Seems to work just fine...

Have a look at: <http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/>
They have native win32 builds of many of the GNU commandline utilities...

 

[Peter Hansen]

Have a look at: <http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/>
They have native win32 builds of many of the GNU commandline utilities...

Thanks, everyone, for all your kind help.

(Uh, I thought it was clear I didn't actually *want* a
method of cutting columns, since I have needed the
functionality once in the last ten years, but on behalf
of those who do what it and didn't know how to get it,
I give you thanks. ;-)

-quite-happy-with-simple-editors-and-a-command-line-ly y'rs,
Peter

 

[=?iso-8859-1?B?VG9taSBI5HPk?=]

And for a long time, Google groups postings *were* whitespace
significant. But the new interface broke it.


I send them some earlier today. So far, I've only received
their auto-reply.

Removing and adding spaces discussed in the Google Groups Beta group
also:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group...r=recent&&_doneTitle=Back&&d#80ad25b58d5dbb49
http://tinyurl.com/6oe6v
http://groups-beta.google.com/group...r=recent&&_doneTitle=Back&&d#bdc0544e3b08a1cd
http://tinyurl.com/5nz5u

Demonstration of the problem:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group...to+topics&_doneTitle=Back&&d#945fa09eea37e41c
http://tinyurl.com/4wem9

More problems listed here:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/google-labs-groups2/msg/b54c12517c75eb24
http://tinyurl.com/3khmj

More info in the FAQ:
http://www.geocities.com/googlepubsupgenfaq/#groupsproblems