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The future of education is plain text

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Re: The future of education is plain text

#201

Post by emodendroket »

nobodyorother wrote: post #192
TuringTest wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've heard, the MS Office applications do not even entirely comply with the published specification. So OOXML is still not a definition of the format with which PowerPoint stores its files.

The spec isn't actually self-consistent, so it's not clear that it can ever actually be implemented: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080328090328998 http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?stor...

Your source claims the spec contradicts previous adapted ISO standards, not that it contradicts itself (which is what I assume you mean by it not being self-consistent). It does, however, raise the issue of bits like legacy compatibility for Word 97 behavior and scripts not being documented.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#203

Post by Razengan »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #46

Plaintext certainly seems more attractive the more docs I write. Over the years, with both work and personal projects, I've used every format from: - Notepad - Microsoft Word - PDF - Twiki - Various proprietary WSYWIG that compiles to HTML - JIRA - Raw HTML - Markdown (several flavors) With nearly every kind of migration, there are numerous pain points. The "raw" formats are a nightmare to edit and update, and the co…

Plaintext / basic Markdown with an "organizer" like Ulysses [0] or Quiver [1] can serve just about all needs.

[0] https://www.ulyssesapp.com

[1] http://happenapps.com/#quiver

Re: The future of education is plain text

#204

Post by mrweasel »

FabHK wrote: post #175

One advantage of plain text formats that I haven't seen mentioned is that they're easily and meaningfully diff-able. You can run two versions of a markdown file or a LaTeX source file through a diff, and see what's been changed. Try that with a PDF or Word file or what have you. As I like to keep my files in version control, I use plain text formats as much as possible.

People look at you like your a damn wizard when you diff two texts to find the differences. I'm sure there are diff tools for Word as well, but almost no one use them, because they aren't aware that such a tool could exist.

The average person run around with a smart phone in their pocket, a marvel of engineering and yet they still don't know how to use their computer to do trivial tasks.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#205

Post by kmicklas »

xj9 wrote: post #82
calinet6 wrote: post #56

And the future of operating systems is the command line. We deserve better than this reductionist thinking. Constraints can breed innovation; but they can also just constrain.

it is, but computer isn't smart enough for the future to happen yet

It's the Unix/text fetishizing developers who aren't the smart enough ones I think...

Re: The future of education is plain text

#206

Post by jmcphers »

k2enemy wrote: post #134
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

Which reminds me of my "biggest" crux these days: what should I replace Evernote with? Looking for a text-based solution, possibly open source, possibly encrypted, and possibly with sync.

I'm in the same boat. I've tried dozens and my leading contenders are... 1) vimwiki configured to use .gpg extensions, then use the gnupg vim plugin. Great wiki syntax, easy links, transparent encryption, optional markdown formatting. Downside is no embedded images. 2) Typora with encfs. Great visual interface and the developer has promised some new features (such as a file browser) to make it more useful as a note-t…

+1 for vimwiki. No embedded images does kind of suck, but it has an excellent side effect: even if you use the wiki a lot, it never consumes a lot of space. That means it's perfectly reasonable to store years and years of data and have it all available, locally, on every device.

The main thing I don't like about it is that there's no simple way to ingest data quickly from a mobile device.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#207

Post by noir_lord »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #46

Plaintext certainly seems more attractive the more docs I write. Over the years, with both work and personal projects, I've used every format from: - Notepad - Microsoft Word - PDF - Twiki - Various proprietary WSYWIG that compiles to HTML - JIRA - Raw HTML - Markdown (several flavors) With nearly every kind of migration, there are numerous pain points. The "raw" formats are a nightmare to edit and update, and the co…

I just use markdown for what it's good at and 'drop' to HTML for the stuff I can't do in 'plain' markdown.

Python has a lovely library for it and combined with jinja you can get a hell of a long way in a couple of hundred lines of python as a static site generator.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#208

Post by kmicklas »

rhencke wrote: post #100
badminton1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you are using another encoding that already works for you? Same as real life alphabets and such?

Convert it to UTF-8 or UTF-16 and call it a day. Let the fractured world of code pages rest in peace. Unicode may not be perfect, but it sure beats the alternatives.

> or UTF-16

Please no. UTF-16 needs to die a painful death.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#209

Post by jmcphers »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

Which reminds me of my "biggest" crux these days: what should I replace Evernote with? Looking for a text-based solution, possibly open source, possibly encrypted, and possibly with sync.

Tried Standard Notes? Not a user myself but I know people who are fans and it sounds right up your alley.

https://standardnotes.org/

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