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An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

#31

Post by mratzloff »

Don't talk bad about GIF! GIF is a great format. Once upon a time I wrote a GIF89a library that supported animation, etc. I found it straightforward to parse and write, eminently extensible, with a clear and easy-to-read specification.

No one has been able to get their act together and propose a successful PNG animation format, but I'm disappointed that the "PNG in GIF" proposal never took off. Size wouldn't be so bad since most images would share a global color space, and browser makers could easily implement it.

ftp://ftp.simplesystems.org/pub/png-group/documents/history/png-in-gif-proposal-20070413.txt

Re: An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

#32

Post by tom9729 »

IbJacked wrote: post #20
sillysaurus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "ping" now since GIF is rolling slowly to the dustbin. PNG can't be used to make animations. GIF can. That alone is enough to ensure GIF will be around for a long, long time.

It's not universally supported, but there is an animated png format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG

As noted in that Wikipedia page, there is also the MNG format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-image_Network_Graphics). Unfortunately it's over 10 years old and there is still little browser support.

Re: An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

#35

Post by Millennium »

wging wrote: post #18
jamespitts wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll keep mispronouncing it too, but will stop needlessly arguing with the silent-g zealots.

There are no silent-g zealots. No one pronounces it 'if' :)

Actually, I think I may have to start doing that now.

Re: An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

#36

Post by kmm »

GIF will be around until there is another animated image format with decent support. APNG seems nice, but needs to be supported more. Personally, I like GIF. It's simple and can be included everywhere with a simple img tag. It's possible to animate with CSS, Javascript or video, but that's a lot more hassle and cannot be done in a comment box.

Re: An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

#38

Post by untog »

300bps wrote: post #9

I use GIF pronunciation to tell how long someone has been on the Internet and precursors of the Internet. I got my first modem (300 baud Mitey Mo) in 1985 and I've seen this story come up at least 50 times since then. If you've been on the Internet over 15 years then this will not be news to you. The other thing I find interesting about the GIF format is how everyone assumes it was designed for animation. I saw someo…

I've been on the internet for nearly 20 and didn't know. How would I find out? I wasn't aubscribed to alt.pronunciationpedantry
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