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The future of education is plain text

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Re: The future of education is plain text

#271

Post by rubidium »

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…

That's.... pretty much my exact experience (oh, I get to add multiple years of latex use).

Html or plaintext is all I trust now. A nice editor on top of it and I'm good. If you have to do larger document writing, I recommend Madcap Flare.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#272

Post by rubidium »

edoceo wrote: post #270
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…

Asciidoc

what, recommending just one more format to learn? I don't think that's what the parent post is looking for : )

Re: The future of education is plain text

#273

Post by collinmanderson »

analog31 wrote: post #170
confounded wrote: post #154

It seems worth mentioning that plaintext is discussed here as the storage / source format. That doesn't mean it has to be the distribution / consumption format. One of the great things about something like Markdown is that it can be rendered to HTML trivially, to display video, equations, etc. Same thing for ebooks, PDFs, whatever (thanks Pandoc!). It's also easy to translate between formats (e.g. .md, .org, .rst, et…

A thought occurs to me about source versus consumption formats. It would seem to me that source code should be the distribution format. That way, the recipient can choose their own preferred consumption format. When I first heard about HTML, described in some magazine article, it was touted as a way to give people a chance to have their own unique readers. For instance, a blind person might want to have their own HTM…

Yes, browsers used to have "user style sheets" where you insert style rules for how big you wanted text to be, etc.

https://dbaron.org/css/user/

Re: The future of education is plain text

#274

Post by thisrod »

dagenleg wrote: post #135
heartbreak wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the student could be a visual learner.

But there's a reason scientific books aren't very rich in illustrations.

What, because all the good ones were written before scientists could afford books with pictures? :-p

Check this out:

https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Complex-Functions-Introduction...

Re: The future of education is plain text

#275

Post by [deleted] »

doublerebel wrote: post #181
nategri wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Started with a Stallman-esque rant I could get down with and then ended in a very un-Stallman-esque and opaque ad. :(

Ok fair, this is the first time I've gotten public interest! Awesome. Please hold shortly, website incoming... (Just for reference, I do want to build a business on open data, but not by owning your data. I would like to help people manage their data.) EDIT: Website is live! Try https://www.optik.io until DNS catches up, if optik.io is not responding for you.

[deleted]

Re: The future of education is plain text

#276

Post by slaymaker1907 »

ska wrote: post #162
pyre wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PDFs are still ok though. There are many implementations of PDF parsers, many Open Source. It may not be as "universal" as plain-text, but it is definitely universal. At this point, I believe that all major operating systems ship with the ability to open PDFs for display.

PDF is a terminal format.

Even Pandoc gives up on trying to read it. To be fair, though, I think that the office suite file formats are even worse.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#277

Post by nxc18 »

doublerebel wrote: post #213
fredsted wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing to melt down, there is no (public) website there You might want to be a bit more clear in your communication. When someone links a URL/domain, you'd expect that there's something there. I mean, why not put up a splash page on your domain, telling something about your product (what is it? Something with plain text? A Markdown-based static site generator, maybe? Who knows.), or maybe a form to subscri…

Thanks for your feedback, HN does not pull any punches. I've been pitching this slowly for a while as I honed the product. I want to help organize data using an open format. I think user control of presentation is crucial as AR and VR work further into daily life -- especially considering accessibility. Splash page is now up, including the product description, and form to subscribe to a mailing list. Please check it…

There's no product description whatsoever...

How do you plan to monetize plain text?

Re: The future of education is plain text

#278

Post by NoahTheDuke »

Razengan wrote: post #203
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

No Windows or Linux? Okay.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#279

Post by ferdterguson »

marcosdumay wrote: post #189
dom0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

restructuredtext?

I'm going to second that. RestructuredText is very powerful, and has an official specification. Basically what Markdown is missing. Yet, it is plain text and easy to parse.

I like reStructuredText, but the format is grating compared to markdown. The two things I do the most are sectioning and links. Inline links are ok in rst, but I prefer markdown. Sectioning though is awful. I hate having to hold the damn == or -- or ~~ down and getting the length right. It's easier to parse when you read the plaintext, but makes me loath writing it. Most the time I deal with md or rst, they end up formatted anyway, which is the point IMO.

Re: The future of education is plain text

#280

Post by ferdterguson »

abritinthebay wrote: post #146
coldtea wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not using those other editors is an added benefit.

Using emacs is a giant drawback however.

If you are more of a vim person and don't like emacs modifier keys, I suggest checking out spacemacs.
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