Author Topic: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron  (Read 50843 times)

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Offline Seg

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #50 on: November 05, 2013, 03:19:03 am »
Whining about Open Source is soooo 1998.

(Speaking as someone who recently gave up using Fedora on the desktop. Sorry guys, you lost the desktop war. Time's up and the desktop is irrelevant. Windows is dying and Android is the future, which is at least partially open source.)
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #51 on: November 05, 2013, 03:22:39 am »
Time's up and the desktop is irrelevant.

Sweet baby Jesus I hope not.

Personally, I do not care who "lost" or "won" or what shiny bullshit is the "future", I will use what I like. Android's nice when I want to accomplish nothing of value. For the rest of the time, it can suck a big fat......

These new tablet/phone/touch systems are the Fisher Price Servin' Surprises Cash Register to a real point of sale terminal.

Read the subject and stop the hijack please.


Thank you - sorry.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2013, 03:26:51 am by c4757p »
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Offline HackedFridgeMagnet

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #52 on: November 05, 2013, 03:24:34 am »
Read the subject and stop the hijack please.
 

Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #53 on: November 05, 2013, 03:32:23 am »
Actually, you *are* the problem here. Take Office's file format, for example. It's changed with almost every version, most of which were backwards incompatible with one another to the point of being an entirely new format. You'd think that .docX would solve that, -snip, remaining useless drivel removed-.

If people stopped using programs (open or closed source) that don't provide either an open standard for their data
-snip: coulda woulda shouda drivel removed-

You really don't get it do you ?

My publisher asks for MS word documents in either word 2003 or later format , with links to the images. Images need to be supplied as vector art in EMS format. They prefer to have an illustrator compatible source so they can easily import my document in the pre-press software. if an .AI file is found they will read that and the pre-press software (InDesign) will use that to render the artwork in better quality.

So what do i do tell them to bugger off and give them an openoffice document with inkscape pictures instead ?
The answer will be : we can't read that. If we can't read it we can't publish it and you won't get any money off it. Fact of life. live with it. If my publisher would ask me to supply source material written in Latex i would use that. If they would ask OpenOffice format i would use that. But they don't. They want MS Office 2003 or later.

Office costs 295$ , I bought CS5 master suite as i wanted to upgrade my old Premiere and wanted to have PDF creater and Photoshop + Lightroom as well. Upgrade cost was 2400$.  First book i had published paid both tools three times over. The other four books i had published basically cost me nothing in tools. i had the tools.

What is there not to understand about that? You can harp on about closed formats and convoluted formats all you want until you have a long beard. If your car needs gas to run , pissing in the tank won't make it move. You can argue until the cows come home that pee has the same color as gasoline so it should work , and harping on about how OPEC controls prices. None of that will make the car move.

I gotta go places. Fill up with gasoline and off i go. (two more months and it will be full electric. Bye OPEC  >:D)

Actually, I *do* get it. I'm an author too, currently writing a book for McGraw-Hill's TAB label. As long as your editor can open the document in Word with basic markup intact, it doesn't really matter what you wrote it in! That text is just being copied/pasted into layout software and being arranged by hand.

Pretty much any modern word processor these days can save a file in .docX format which will open in word. The trick is opening a .docX file saved from Word in any other software. Hell, you don't even need to save it on .docX format; .RTF or even .HTML would work (and open fine in Word) for the type of formatting you need to submit chapters to your editor!

As for Inkscape, I just took a complex .AI file, opened it in Inkscape, made a change, exported it in .SVG, .EPS and .AI then re-opened it in AI and guess what? All three files look exactly the same. There is no reason whatsoever you can't do your drawings in Inkscape, Sketch or any other Open Source/Third Party vector image software and send it to your editor as an .SVG file, I assure you the production department is smart enough to convert it (if it even needs to be) before pulling it into InDesign.

Hell, you could do your diagrams and schematics in any EDA/CAD program you want and print them straight to a PDF and convert that straight to an .AI or SVG file with some (free!) software really easily.

I use some great software to write with called Scrivener. It lets me organize my entire manuscript into a hierarchy. I can store PDF datasheets and any other research material right inside, link those items to specific pages, attach extensive notes or footnotes to specific sections, have it automatically generate outlines and tons more stuff I can't even think of right now. It's sooooo much better than Word for writing books, something Word was never designed to do.

Now here comes the neat part, there is no concept of exporting your document. Instead, you "compile" your manuscript. You have fine grained control over everything, from filling in placeholders you set to what's included or excluded and what format it's outputted as. Just need a ToC with footnotes? No problem. Want to compile simultaneously in .docX, Kindle, ePub, iBooks Author, PDF and HTML formats with fine grained control over each? Easy as cake.

Using the right tool for the job is important and Word is very much the wrong tool for writing long books, *especially* technical books. You may need all the complex features of AI or the ability to run expensive plugins, but most people don't. Following our tool analogy, Adobe CS is like a full Snap On tool chest, while Inkscape/Sketch and GIMP/Pixelmator is a box of Craftsman tools. They're both tools and will both work for 99% of people, but the Snap On chest costs $30,000 and contains every socket, bit and driver size there is (most of which only an Master Mechanic will ever use) while the toolbox of Craftsman stuff costs $100 and has a few dozen screwdrivers and pliers plus metric and imperial socket sets. Chances are, if you ever need anything outside this basic set you can either go find the specific tool you need or improvise.

As for pissing in the gas tank, you explained that one (and contradicted yourself in the process) for me! If my car took gas to run but I didn't want to use gas, I'd find an alternative mode of transport. Either public (bus/subway/taxi) or private (electric or bio-diesel car/bike). You switching to an electric car to get away from OPEC is contradictory to sticking with bad software when there are better solutions.

« Last Edit: November 06, 2013, 05:46:21 pm by timb »
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Offline free_electron

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #54 on: November 05, 2013, 03:32:58 am »
Besides, any decent hobbyist has at least a dual boot machine , or all three . I got a linux, a windows and a Mac , so i can do all.
Restricting yourself to one is like saying : i will only use flathead screws. I don't want to have anything to do with phillips or torx.
Personally i like phillips and torx (windows and mac) flathead screws have a tendency to slip easily.
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Online BravoV

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #55 on: November 05, 2013, 03:47:32 am »
Read the subject and stop the hijack please.

+1

C'mon guys, Vincent already stated clearly he is not against Open Source.

Keep bashing his preference using closed source apps, and also sounds like few number of people somehow keep expecting him (sort of  :-// cmiiw) to start praising OS apps for his works is just pointless.

Back to electronic talk related to his interview, please.

Offline free_electron

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #56 on: November 05, 2013, 03:49:22 am »

Actually, I *do* get it. I'm an author too, currently writing a book for McGraw-Hill's TAB label. As long as your editor can open the document in Word with basic markup intact, it doesn't really matter what you wrote it in! That text is just being copied/pasted into layout software and being arranged by hand.

we (my publisher and i) work differently.
I send word document , they proofread and edit content. We exchange that file. Easy, both of use have same program. I control the formatting and the template. When we both agree on the fi al document i spit out a pre-press file in PDF format that includes the registration marks, borders . I also supply the, woth a photoshop fil that comtains the cover. Some of the layers in the psd file are embedded ai vector files.
I dont need converter tools for anything. The entire adobe suite works together. I can simply slect a schematic drawing in altium hit ctrl-c in altium, click on the illustrator document and do ctrl-v. Altium stores emf graphics on the clipboard. No need for external tools or converters. Same for the pcb. Ctrl-c i. Altium, ctrl-v in illustrator. That doesn't work with inkscape (at least not last time i tried).

The same works between quartus (altera tools) waveforms and schematics and illustrator.

Last time i looked inkscape could not save AI files.

Besides, SVG is a broken standard. Inkscape doesnt support it fully to start...


Quote
Hell, you could do your diagrams and schematics in any EDA/CAD program you want and print them straight to a PDF and convert that straight to an .AI or SVG file with some (free!) software really easily.
Why all those intermediate steps. Ctrl-c ctrl-v. I dont need to print to pdf, don't need to remove clipping regions set to page sizes, don't need to worry about missing fonts.

Quote
Adobe CS is like a full Snap On tool chest, while Inkscape/Sketch and GIMP/Pixelmator is a box of Craftsman tools.

It's more than that. The tools integrate via the clipboard. The other analogy is more like a mixed collection of brands, all with different handles and you alwys need one more adapter piece.... Or ru. To the store for a bit that is missing. Ill take the snap-on chest. Thank you.

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Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #57 on: November 05, 2013, 04:23:55 am »
This isn't off topic, he made the comment on the show and even said he expected a shit storm over it. We're discussing the merits of various workflows and how Open Source fits into that.

we (my publisher and i) work differently.
I send word document , they proofread and edit content. We exchange that file. Easy, both of use have same program. I control the formatting and the template. When we both agree on the fi al document i spit out a pre-press file in PDF format that includes the registration marks, borders . I also supply the, woth a photoshop fil that comtains the cover. Some of the layers in the psd file are embedded ai vector files.
I dont need converter tools for anything. The entire adobe suite works together. I can simply slect a schematic drawing in altium hit ctrl-c in altium, click on the illustrator document and do ctrl-v. Altium stores emf graphics on the clipboard. No need for external tools or converters. Same for the pcb. Ctrl-c i. Altium, ctrl-v in illustrator. That doesn't work with inkscape (at least not last time i tried).

You could just as easily exchange RTF files for proofreading.

If Altium is just making a copy of the Windows GDI calls (EMF) then there's no reason you can't paste that into any other vector (or bitmap) graphics software, like Inkscape. Likewise you can copy/paste between Inkscape and The GIMP. That has nothing to do with Adobe CS and more to do with how Windows (and to a better extent OS X) handle graphics in the clipboard.

It's more than that. The tools integrate via the clipboard. The other analogy is more like a mixed collection of brands, all with different handles and you alwys need one more adapter piece.... Or ru. To the store for a bit that is missing. Ill take the snap-on chest. Thank you.

Sort of, but as I explained above, having image data in the clipboard is a Windows feature, not specific to any one piece of software. Let's go with the mixed collection of tools analogy: I can use a Kobalt 1/4" drive socket head on a Craftsman 1/4" drive ratchet and they'll work just fine, just like I can copy/paste image data between say Acorn and Pixelmator on my Mac.

This wraps back to my earlier argument that open standards make all the difference. That image data moves between Altium and the Adobe CS programs in the clipboard because of a published standard and library from Microsoft. Just like how Word can open/save various other (open) formats (HTML, RTF, etc.) but other programs can't correctly open .docX files, because it's a closed format. This is good for Microsoft, because it gets you in their software and it's bad for users because it won't let you get out.

I'll take my $100 toolbox, because then I'll have $29,900 leftover to buy diagnostic equipment, a car lift and other useful gear with. I hope you've got a floor jack in that Snap On cart!

And Inkscape's native save format is based on SVG. It can also export plain SVG, AI and more: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Save_as_vs_export#Current_status
Quote
As a reminder, current save formats are (at least): Inkscape SVG(Z), Plain SVG(Z), PS, EPS, Cairo PDF, Cairo PS, POV, ODG, TEX, AI (8.0), DXF, AutoCAD DXF, EPSI, GPL, XCF, XAML, Inkscape svg with media ZIP, EMF.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2013, 04:26:11 am by timb »
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Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #58 on: November 05, 2013, 04:30:26 am »
Besides, any decent hobbyist has at least a dual boot machine , or all three . I got a linux, a windows and a Mac , so i can do all.
Restricting yourself to one is like saying : i will only use flathead screws. I don't want to have anything to do with phillips or torx.
Personally i like phillips and torx (windows and mac) flathead screws have a tendency to slip easily.

Haha, very well put! Though, Phillips are the ones that slip easily (by design!) and before you know it you've worn the head out and have to put a new one in! (Or just grind the head into a flathead.) Speaking of which, flathead screws are just frustrating to use.
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Offline rolycat

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #59 on: November 05, 2013, 04:50:14 am »
Haha, very well put! Though, Phillips are the ones that slip easily (by design!) and before you know it you've worn the head out and have to put a new one in! (Or just grind the head into a flathead.) Speaking of which, flathead screws are just frustrating to use.

Slot head screws are frustrating to use. Flathead screws can be Phillips, Pozidriv, slotted, or any other sort of drive.

I dunno why Pozidriv hasn't replaced Phillips head by now - much less likely to cam out.

Sorry, guys - I'm being a pedant again...
 

Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #60 on: November 05, 2013, 05:45:50 am »
I actually originally wrote slotted, but changed it to flathead as not to change terminology in the middle of an analogy.

It's true though, flathead screws are the hermaphrodites of the fastener world. A key for every slot and a slot for every key.
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Offline ResistorRob

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #61 on: November 05, 2013, 05:49:36 am »
Actually, you *are* the problem here. Take Office's file format, for example. It's changed with almost every version, most of which were backwards incompatible with one another to the point of being an entirely new format. You'd think that .docX would solve that, being an XML file, right? Wrong! The data inside essentially a memory dump of the open file with pointers to specific locations for the formatting.

The source code to Word is like like layer after layer of hardened dog shit, complete with anthropomorphic paperclips and flowing ribbons buried many layers down, frozen in time like some sort of Poop Pompeii; so much so that Microsoft literally needs a scatological archeologist—a Dog Shit Indiana Jones, if you will—on staff to retrieve these lost artifacts, just to give them some *tiny* semblance of a clue as to just what the hell any of it actual means before they can once again drop trou and plop the latest steaming turd onto a cloud and call it a day.

There are so many good word processors out there today that would fit people's needs a million times better, but people have been convinced by good marketing that they actually need the myriad of convoluted and poorly coded features that it provides.

I agree with you on this post and the following one. I have hated Word for YEARS... like always! Starting way back in Office 95 and 97 it was such a bloated piece of software for the capabilities of PC's back then. It could take up half your hard drive if you had an older computer, and even if you had a standard mainstream computer it just seemed sluggish and overly complicated for basic uses.

Like you said they keep modifying their own file format so it's a complete mess. I agree with free_electron Open Office is pretty horrible, but I have sent people files created in Google Doc's in both acadamia and business and never had single complaint ever. So just as you said, who cares what is used for creation as long as people with Word, Illustrator, and so on, can open it on their end and have it render exactly as intended.

Most people don't know this, but Corel Wordperfect has much better accuracy than Word and is used heavily in the legal space, because when lawyers are creating complex forms it gives them pinpoint accuracy of where something is placed on the page, compared to Word which you often have to say to yourself "screw it, it's close enough".

Back to free_electrons comments that open source won't work for what he does, it doesn't sound like he has ever tried any alternatives, just assumed it won't work. Like you said typically you can create something in Inkspace or whatever and have it open in the $$$ version "without any trouble whatsoever" to borrow a line from Dave :-)

I can't resist commenting on the screwdriver analogy. What do you do when you strip a phillips screw? Turn it into a slotted screw so you can remove it. So slotted screws must be better, right? lol

edited: fixed a typo
« Last Edit: November 05, 2013, 05:51:59 am by ResistorRob »
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Offline free_electron

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #62 on: November 05, 2013, 12:39:04 pm »
Look, we can argue till the cows come home.
I use the tools i like. Done.
Amongst them are several open source tools. And i'm perfectly fine with them. 7zip comes to mind , there is an ftp program , i use an open source disk duplicator tool.

But, i also use msword , Altium and the adobe tools.

Don't go looking for weird motives. They are simple: these tools offer functionality and features lacking in the open source alternatives.

Inkscape is not illustrator
Kicad and geda are awkward, weird and in their infancy compared to where altium is
Openoffice is not ms office.

And that's it.
I don't treat software as 'here is the open source marktt, there is the commercial market." There is only one software market. I just pick the tools i like best. Some of them are made by companoesfor profit, some of them are free, as in free beer, some of hem even include the source. As long as they do what i expect from them and don't give me lip i will ise them. If they are annoying for one reason or another i will look for something better.

First rule of engineering : if it works , don't touch it.

I actually use inkscape at work to make quick drawings and diagrams to put in powerpoint presentations (how anyone can make a drawing or diagram in powerpoint is a mystery to me. Now there is a piece of shit program. Visio is another one of these horrors). I dont use inkscape at home because i have something that works better for me : illustrator.

I don't give a rats ass about all that philosophical drivel that tools should be free, formats open and source available. We don't live in an ideal world.
Meanwhile i have work to do. I will use whatever does it in the shortest, least painful way possible.

And that's all i have to say about that.

Open source is not bad, commercial is not bad. Pick the best of what is offered. Anything else is just sheer stupidity and boneheadedness.
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Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #63 on: November 05, 2013, 02:18:14 pm »
Like I said before, I get not wanting to compile your entire OS from source when there are better alternatives out there. That's why I use Mac OS X and not Linux. The thing is, Microsoft Word and Adobe CS are some of the worst examples you can give for preferring closed source over open. They've become some of the worst pieces of commercial software in the world!

I don't think one person on here has disagreed with you about OpenOffice being just as horrible as MS Office. What we have said, and you can't seem to defend, is the fact there are numerous other tools, some of them open, a lot of them closed, that absolutely run circles around MS Word!

Having open standards isn't some Richard Stallman-esque "Free Love and Code" philosophical goal. It's a practical, real world method of maintaining a flourishing ecosystem of compatible applications that give users choice. I'd much rather take a little time to sit down and try a dozen or more apps out to find the one that bests suits my writing style versus having Microsoft tell me Word is all I'll ever need.

From what you've said, it doesn't seem at all like you pick the tools that will suit you the best, rather it seems like you've been using the most monopolistic tools for so long that you've actually forgotten what you need, or are just too set in your ways to bother trying anything new.

If that's the case it's perfectly acceptable. You're more than entitled to use whatever you feel comfortable with, but don't act like that attitude doesn't make you part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
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Offline c4757p

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #64 on: November 05, 2013, 02:28:43 pm »
From what you've said, it doesn't seem at all like you pick the tools that will suit you the best, rather it seems like you've been using the most monopolistic tools for so long that you've actually forgotten what you need, or are just too set in your ways to bother trying anything new.

For anything more complicated than a screwdriver, a lot of time has to be invested in learning how to use it. I'll admit it, I am too "set in my ways" to bother, because what I use works and I have no interest in spending that much time learning an alternative screwdriver.

Quote
If that's the case it's perfectly acceptable. You're more than entitled to use whatever you feel comfortable with, but don't act like that attitude doesn't make you part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

What exactly is the "problem"? You keep prattling on about choice. There is plenty of choice. There are as many EDA packages as there are groups of people competent enough to build one. You have this dream of an open standard allowing you to move from one package to another, but it's exactly that, a dream. Not gonna happen. Lock-in happens everywhere, even in the open source world. Try making a complex document in LibreOffice and taking it to another open source word processor which can read ODF, like AbiWord. Take a look at what gets shat onto your screen. And AbiWord doesn't even use it as the primary format.

There is literally no solution to this problem that has ever worked:



These things you keep talking about don't work in the real world.
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Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #65 on: November 05, 2013, 02:37:24 pm »
A/C Chargers: USB

Character Encoding: UTF-8

Instant Message: SMS
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Offline c4757p

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #66 on: November 05, 2013, 02:43:25 pm »
USB is hardware, which is quite different. SMS is (or at least, was) tied to hardware. UTF-8 is an exception because of how absolutely essential a standard character set is; nobody is going to use a proprietary character set.
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Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #67 on: November 05, 2013, 03:14:32 pm »
I was responding to the three examples from the XKCD comic you posted. Everything with a battery basically uses USB to charge these days, SMS is the standard for instant messaging these days (which FaceBook and Twitter are intertwined with) and UTF-8 does in fact count because just 10 years ago character encoding was a mess! I remember when you couldn't even reliably read Spanish or French in Windows 98 (even early XP) without your screen filling up with blocks like you were being attacked by Tetris! (That's not even counting places behind the Iron Curtain that had hundreds of competing Cyrillic encodings.)

Then I could cite something like recent Web Standards explosion (HTML/CSS3/H.264/SVG/AJAX/JS) that's displaced Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's ActiveX behemoths in just a few short years.

If you don't think open standards for most things aren't the future, then *you're* dreaming. ;)
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Online BravoV

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #68 on: November 05, 2013, 03:37:40 pm »
Just do NOT feed the troll.  :palm:

Offline free_electron

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #69 on: November 05, 2013, 03:50:23 pm »
From what you've said, it doesn't seem at all like you pick the tools that will suit you the best, rather it seems like you've been using the most monopolistic tools for so long that you've actually forgotten what you need, or are just too set in your ways to bother trying anything new.

Yes it does ! MS word works perfectly fine for me. It does everything i want from it , i don't need to waste time learning another tool , and my editor is happy receiving the word document , doing edits , sending me back and i can go over and accept or reject any edit. MS Word neatly tracks all changes. I don't need a different tool . There may be tools out there that run circles around word but i don't need those. What i have works fine. Why can't you understand that ? There is nothing wrong with that!
It is the least amount of effort and path of least resistance. Using anything else will be a larger effort, not necessarily writing it , but getting it in a format that is compatible with what was asked in the first place.

If it's a new oscilloscope i'd happily spend time learning how to use it. If it's a text editor., i can't be bothered. i have no interest in finding out all its ins and outs. Editor wants MS word and Illustrator . I use those. No surprises afterwards. No risk of having to redo things because of file format problems. Their flow is Word + Illustrator + indesign. So we go.
In the end what matters is the content of the document, not how it was produced. The easiest path is perfect for me.

If a customer wants me to code a piece of C code and demands it is compiled by a MISRA compliant compiler i don't need to deliver something sent through GCC. It will fail incoming inspection and i'll have to redo it. So why waste the time in the first place ? That is how the world works.

I have ZERO interest in all the endless debates , politics and Stallmanesque utopia dreaming. Work needs to be done. I do the work , deliver what is asked in the format that is asked in what is for me the least painful way. Gimme my money and bugger off. I wanna go scubadiving , throw a something on the barbeque and watch the sunset sipping something in a long tall glass with a little umbrella in it and read the latest elektor magazine.

Like it or not : go in the industry and see what formats are asked for. Again you can argue till the cows come home that this is because of the monopolistic and bullying work of microsoft, and you will be right. There is no arguing about that. The fact still is : it is requested to deliver it in this format or prepare to redo it, or, for it to be rejected.

I have no interested going on a crusade like don quichote.  Life is too short . My interests lie elsewhere.
You go crusade against monopolistic software makers, i'll go crusade against people explaining opamps wrong with virtual grounds and symmetric supplies. I can't fight every battle.
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Offline free_electron

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #70 on: November 05, 2013, 03:52:41 pm »

If you don't think open standards for most things aren't the future, then *you're* dreaming. ;)

Open standards are great. You make em , get em universally adopted and i'll use em.
Until a new universal standard comes along i will use the current one.

I have no interest in making them. I do hardware, you do software.

Easy enough to understand no ?
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Offline timb

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #71 on: November 05, 2013, 04:11:27 pm »
 |O

We're like going around in circles here. The alternative formats are here already, but by not using them (and using Word instead) you contribute to the problem. You don't need to make anything, you just need to help make it the new standard by using it!

That's literally been my entire point all along. :phew:

I'm not trolling. You're not trolling. We're both obviously very passionate people who are both entrenched in our beliefs, so clearly we're not changing each other's minds here and thusly we must agree to disagree on the subject, like gentlemen. (And to everyone else bitching about a bit of good old fashioned heated debate, seriously, this is a forum. The whole point is debate. He made a somewhat controversial statement and people responded. If you don't like it, don't read the post. By harping on about it all you're doing is lower the SnR ratio of the thread yourself!)
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Offline SeanB

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #72 on: November 05, 2013, 04:23:08 pm »
I will be willing to bet the one open source program you can use out of the box on windows, mac and Linux is VLC. I have found that there are very few video and audio file formats it will not be able to play. As well on a Windows machine you can have it play as the desktop background, and it works well. 1 file to download, one click to install and it just works. Can both stream and play back streams, and transcode on the fly between quite a few formats with ease.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #73 on: November 05, 2013, 05:43:27 pm »
The alternative formats are here already, but by not using them (and using Word instead) you contribute to the problem. You don't need to make anything, you just need to help make it the new standard by using it!


It doesn't change anything ! My editor wants Ms Word. You convince THEM to adopt something else and i will follow.

I am NOT going to fight that battle.
Not in my interest. I know word , they want word : path of least resistance for me. Anything else is more work and learning curve for me.

is that really too hard to grasp ?


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Offline marshallh

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Re: Our 3+ hour interview with free_electron
« Reply #74 on: November 05, 2013, 06:15:46 pm »
Great interview.


Also enjoyed laughs from the butthurt open source crowd.  :-DD
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