Tuesday, August 08, 2000, 5:29:37 PM, Steve Lamb, wrote:
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SL> Tuesday, August 08, 2000, 3:10:57 PM, Joe wrote:
>> I want my pastes to conform *precisely* with my usual written text format
>> (by default), and I still think the majority would agree with that.
SL> Given that your usual written text format blows, please, no.
I'm not sure I know how to take that comment, Steve.
For the time being, at least, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and not
take exception to it.
>> Doing it your way, *everything* is an "exception."
SL> No, everything is not an exception.
Maybe not from where you sit, but from where I sit, everything *is.*
Maybe we should start sticking our tongues out at each other now?
SL> Only the exceptions are exceptions.
But doing it your way makes *everything* an exception, whether you care
to admit it or not.
That is, you're forced to make these decisions for *every* post.
SL> Do you know how rarely I have to reformat things that I've pasted in?
But I'm not concerned with how often *you* have to reformat anything,
I'm only concerned with how often *I* have to.
SL> So far
SL> it has been on things where I had to manually reformat something because it
SL> was very mangled to begin with. Everything else is exactly as needed and I am
SL> glad it doesn't mangle text because the dumb computer thinks it is smarter
SL> than me.
I think the computer stands a pretty good chance of being smarter than
you, Stevie, if you ask me -- but then you didn't ask.
>> What they should do, in my opinion, is handle all text, both written and
>> pasted, according to the same default rule.
SL> I'll say it again, there are certain things a computer should not do
SL> without explicit instruction. Reformatting is one of them.
You can say it until the cows come home, but we'd still disagree.
And as I said before, I'd wager some money that the majority agrees
with me.
When you turn on your computer every day, it does a series of things
automatically, based primarily on what *your* PREFERENCES are.
That is, you've already given it some "explicit instruction," haven't you?
Well, that's exactly what I want TB to do. I don't want to futz around
with the program every damn time I decide to write a message any more than I
want to futz with my computer every damn time I turn it on.
>> If I come across an exception, *then* I can change things.
SL> Might I suggest that if you find that you're hitting the exception a lot
SL> you should look to see what you're doing wrong to make it do that.
And may I suggest to you that you should worry more about your own problems than
mine, okay? Yes, feel free to ignore my posts in the future.
What I'm doing "wrong," I suppose, is copying text from hundreds of
different sources on the Internet, and then trying to get them all to format
themselves to *my* preferred format default, and to what the preferences of
my mail list members are.
Now, I suppose that I could stop doing that, but I don't want to,
America being a free country and all.
>> $.25 says the majority agrees?
SL> $.25 says I don't give a rat's buns about what the majority
SL> thinks?
I'd lose *that* bet, because it's obvious you only care about
yourself.
But I'd win this one:
I bet $.25 that the vast majority doesn't give one rat's ass about
what you think, either.
SL> The
SL> majority thinks it is peachy-keen to send large attachments through email.
No, they don't. Those are in the minority.
SL> The majority is wrong on that. The majority thinks voice email is a neat
SL> idea.
No, they don't. The majority doesn't even know that voice e-mail
exists.
SL> They're wrong on that too for the same reason as large attachments.
The only reason they're "wrong" is because of their impact on others.
In the future, when broadband is available to everyone, everyone will
be "right."
SL> The majority thinks the WWW is the internet and that AOL is an ISP.
The majority don't even own a computer.
SL> They're
SL> wrong on that, too. And guess what, when pasting the computer should not
SL> reformat because it does not know if you have done any formatting before-hand
SL> (which is quite often the case) or if it is mangled and the formatting would
SL> make it harder for you to manually reformat (the rest of the case).
This is precisely why a really smart guy once said "Different
strokes for different folks."
It's also why cars come in different colors, some have automatics, etc.
Henry Ford-like, I suppose you would rather have said, "My way or the highway," eh?
I'm really glad you're not in charge of anything that affects *my* life.
The horror. The horror.
:>(
--
Joe Finocchiaro
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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