Chuck Esterbrook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >I don't like spreadsheets. I code in Emacs. I read my mail in
> >Emacs. I love Emacs. I never ever use spreadsheets, why use them for
> >this one thing?
>
> Because Emacs does not and never will contain the entire world. It doesn't
> do diagrams, it doesn't do spreadsheets, it doesn't play video games, it's
> not a bash shell (AFAIK), etc.
>
> And it shouldn't be. If you eventually poured everything in there, you
> would have an op sys and a bunch of programs. But we already have that.
Yeah, it's called Emacs :) But really, for good reason all code in all
languages is easily-editable ASCII, except APL and we all know what
happened to them. And maybe visual GUI builders count too, but they
have a much more compelling reason to be non-ASCII.
Python code is well-structured and far richer than what a spreadsheet
can represent, because it structures it in a grammar. No novice is
ever going to edit a model description, so it's no hinderance to use.
> >I've never really understood what UML languages really offer over just
> >reading something and thinking about it.
>
> If you read and think that doesn't produce anything that someone else can
> use. I guess UML becomes more useful as you work with more people.
Probably. But I think a good English description is useful too, and
general enough to be all-encompassing, flexible enough to be as formal
as you desire. And it's easy to inline ASCII representations of the
description, and I suppose possible (though more difficult :) to
inline spreadsheets.
I mean, I'm not *opposed* to them or anything. It just always seemed
like organizational cruft to me, but I've never actually been in a
situation where they've been used.
Ian
_______________________________________________
Webware-devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webware-devel
