> Actually I wonder a little why you accept using a modern tool like LaTeX > being just 20 years old - while we all learned that the optimum > scholar-environment was developed by the old Greeks (to my knowledge > without any computers and/or LaTeX) -- after that we never had such a > development of basic wisdom as during that time!
Because you misunderstood a basic point: I use tools not because they're fashionable, but because I convinced myself they are the best choice to get a task done. I don't care what you learned about the optimum scholar environment, I also don't care what someone told me about it, it's one of the things which I can find out myself easily. > Well - (to some extend) that was meant as a joke - but seriously: Did > you ever consider how fast the environment changes today - for every > human being in any kind of doing? And how fast the tools change that you > can use to develop and deploy new ideas or to evaluate the basics? I'm looking out at this moment. There's trees and blue sky. They pretty much look like in my childhood. I'm looking forward to ice-skating later today - pretty much as in my childhood. I'll probably play in the snow with the kids layer - pretty much as in my childhood. When driving home, there'll be traffic and snow on the roads - just as in my childhood. I'll meet friends and we'll talk - pretty much as in my childhood. To first approximation, my physical and social environment looks pretty stable to me. My mind didn't change so much over the last years - I can process information at a certain rate, some things make me happy, others sad, I can dream up stories,... Is it possible that you're confusing 'environment' and 'any kind of doing' with something else which is much narrower? At the moment, I need to prepare a presentation. A 20 years ago, I would have done this with pens - now I use LaTeX. I'm going to reference other works - 20 years ago, I would have had to go through the library, now I can use arXive and spires to do it from my laptop. The tasks are unchanged, but there has been some progress in tools, and since I understand that the tools are superior for the task at hand, I use them (somewhat funnily, among all colleagues I know, I've been the first to use computer typesetting and my laptop for presentations...). There have been significant changes in available tools since - we've seen Powerpoint & Co - but they simply don't deliver. I get a worse layout for two times the work and 100 times the file-size. So I don't use Powerpoint, even if it's fashionable to do so. We can look at Flightgear (and in the virtual world, the environment actually changed a lot). I want to do something (make nice clouds), so I acquire the tools I need (Nasal, GLSL) to get the job done. Note that we can argue if Nasal is the best tool or not (we've done this on this list a few times), but that I personally think it was the right choice. > Believe me: I do understand that someone does not want to change his > tools > every couple of years - just about nobody wants to do that and really > nobody needs to -- unless he is in a competitive environment! There's a reason LaTeX is still around despite all competition, and that it that it's hard to beat. Both its flexibility and its ability to do decent typesetting are so compelling that I haven't ever seen anything coming close. You're missing the simple point that you have so far not come up with much compelling evidence that your tools actually can do better than what we have, you've just delivered a few lines of web 2.0 phrases. I'd have to guess at what Martin and Stuart think, but at least I'm not impressed by web 2.0 phrases, I use what does the job at hand best. > Those new tools will not have any > effect onto the "contents" of any dispute about e.g. "Egyptian myth" and > similar! Except that you can do that now with modern tools with every > "scientist" worldwide in real time! Excuse me, but didn't you try to make a point about multiple languages? That's clearly a content issue, not a tool issue, and yet you somehow claimed it would argue for different tools. The sum of your statements did not seem to be 'leave the content what it is, just change to better processing tools', but you argued for changing the whole structure (including who gets to contribute to the manual). So kindly don't present red herrings here. > - but does (e.g.) a Housewife really need to learn all theoretical > basics about e.g. plastics, metal, porcelain - just to cook? Strawman argument. Of course not. However, you have to learn C++ if you want to contribute to the Flightgear core development, you have to learn GLSL if you want to edit shaders, you have to learn to drive a car if you want to join traffic and so on. Real pilots learn theoretical basics of aerodynamics just to fly - and there's some consensus that this is a reasonable thing. > - and does every kid need to know everything about aerodynamic-theories, > FAA rules, etc. etc. just to play with the FGFS? (And learn by doing!). No (another strawman) - did anyone put an exam in while I wasn't watching? At least my copy of FGFS doesn't ask me FAA rules before I start the simulation. So what's that got to do with anything? > - is there anybody who really knows every detail about the world of > computer-hardware/architecture for which he designs a program or > application? No. And the point is...? > My understanding of a "Handbook", "Manual", "Reference" or similar is: > Guide a beginner (may he be 10 years or 70, may he be a "scientists" or > just a kid) to be able to use the FGFS as a "toy" for playing, and show > him how he could learn more and more about it -- if he wants to. Well, as I said quite clearly, I was commenting on web 2.0 phrases (which I specifically quoted). Your understanding about what a Manual is is your opinion, which I respect but do not share, but that has no relevance for what I said about web 2.0 phrases. Cheers, * Thorsten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Virtualization & Cloud Management Using Capacity Planning Cloud computing makes use of virtualization - but cloud computing also focuses on allowing computing to be delivered as a service. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51521223/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
