September 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

re: [gutvol-d] key points studiously ignored
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Sep '05

24 Sep '05

do you notice how the key points are studiously ignored? in tandem with the test-suite that i posted here, and which is available in the beta-version of my viewer-app, i posted the 11 rules of z.m.l. telling how to use plain-text to indicate the structural elements contained in the suite... the "11 rules" document is also contained in the viewer beta. since the rules were tailored to leverage existing conventions, you should find most of them to be extremely familiar to you. in addition, you might realize many of your documents are already "compliant" with z.m.l., without you doing anything. even if they aren't, the "rules" are so dirt-simple that you'll find it amazingly easy to edit your document to z.m.l. specs. this pair of documents -- the test-suite and the "rules" sheet -- when taken together tells you _precisely_ how z.m.l. operates. z.m.l. is so radically simple that a fourth-grader can create it... i'll re-posting those docs here next week, so you won't have to bother digging them up. in the meantime, enjoy the weekend... :+) -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] key points studiously ignored
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Sep '05

24 Sep '05

do you notice how the key points are studiously ignored? i've posted a test-suite here before that contains the structural elements that comprise virtually the entirety of the library of project gutenberg e-texts, and all can be represented in plain text... and -- in spite of my constant challenge -- no one has been able to come up with any additional elements that should be included. -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] key points studiously ignored
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Sep '05

24 Sep '05

do you notice how the key points are studiously ignored? i have consistently said "show me the e-texts from the current library that you say i cannot represent with z.m.l.". and nobody has listed even one single e-text. not even one! i haven't looked at all of the e-texts yet -- has anyone, ever? -- so i wouldn't be shocked if there are 250 that -- for one reason or another -- might be too tough... but hey, even if there are twice that number -- 500 -- that means i _can_ handle about 16,500, or some 97%. but forget about 500 for now. just show me a dozen right now. -bowerbird

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key points studiously ignored
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Sep '05

24 Sep '05

do you notice how the key points are studiously ignored? if it is "implausible" plain-text is sufficient to express the structure making up a book, then how was david moynihan over at blackmask.com ever able to take all the project gutenberg e-texts and -- _singlehandedly_ -- convert 'em to 6 formats? how? -bowerbird

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re: Reiterating Jon's points on the off-chance Bowerbird might read them [Was Re: [gutvol-d] Re: here ya go, joey]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

i read jon's posts. i just don't reply to them. after having read jon's posts for too many years now, i know what they're gonna say before i read them, but i read them anyway. i know what he's gonna say so well by now i could write his posts for him. he's been on the same merry-go-round for a long time. after a while, i got dizzy. it's pretty easy for me to push his buttons. i switched from an [em] tag to an [i] tag just because i knew that would irritate him. :+) *** joey said: > He seems to flirt with being a useful person, but > retreats from it whenever it gets close to fruition. well, i've been toying with y'all for some time now, because i wanted to see just how long you would continue to assert that what i'm doing is "impossible". even though some of you seem to be inexhaustible, i've become bored with that now, so i've decided to furnish the pudding which contains the proof inside it. i've also been waiting for you to waste some of your valuable time in the futile task of doing x.m.l. markup, but i guess you are just too smart to fall for that trap. fortunately, so are the people you tried to persuade to do that markup for you, which is why none of it is done. > Most of us do not believe that a plain text file > can convey the level of meta-data detail and > accuracy available using heavier forms of markup, > so we see "Plain text as primary format" as undesirable. and "most of you" are just plain flat out wrong. you might be technically right, in that heavy markup _might_ do "more". but that's fairly irrelevant, since zen markup language can do "all that is necessary"... and although you and i might argue about what is "necessary", the end-user -- who ultimately has to _pay_ for the heavy markup you want to require -- has no question about that being a bad investment. > As it stands, I don't currently see this as a plausible reality. you will learn. or be left behind. it's your choice... :+) -bowerbird

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re: Reiterating Jon's points on the off-chance Bowerbird might read them [Was Re: [gutvol-d] Re: here ya go, joey]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

i said: > you will learn. or be left behind. it's your choice... :+) or maybe you'll be hit by that bus josh was talking about... ;+) have a nice weekend folks. i was gonna post a .pdf of my "alice", but it's too late now, i'll do it monday. -bowerbird

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Re: Reiterating Jon's points on the off-chance Bowerbird might read them [Was Re
by Joshua Hutchinson 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

----- Original Message ----- From: joey <joey(a)joeysmith.com> > In fact, pretty much every time I read an > email from Bowerbird, I find myself fighting the urge to puch someone, > HARD.) > Wow, I'm not the only one! Ok, sorry, that was a non-productive statement. > I think this is probably one of the best points I've ever heard made on > this mailing list. Bowerbird, thus far, has proposed to provide the world > with fish for sale. Myself, Marcello, and Jon (1) would prefer a pole, some > bait, and a map to a good fising hole. > > (1) I hope Marcello and Jon don't mind my speaking for them here, but it > seemed a safe statement given previous statements made by each of them. You can add me to that list! Look at this way. Everything at PG has to pass the "hit by a bus" test. If person X were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, would everyone else be able to pick up and carry on? PGTEI qualifies. ZML does not. PGTEI for the win! Josh

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re: [gutvol-d] Re: here ya go, joey
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

joey said: > I wasn't trying to get you to rewrite anything. i never said you were. it was someone else who mentioned "deprecated" tags. -bowerbird

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re: A single statement from Marcello reiterated [Was Re: [gutvol-d] Re: here ya go, joey]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

joey said: > Perhaps you can explain why you think it is irrelevant? because that text is available all over the web. i didn't start with the project gutenberg e-text simply because it doesn't properly mark italics, and a blind conversion from uppercase to italics will produce some errors, and you won't know it. but as i said, there are plenty of websites with proper italics, some of which do not appear to have been generated using a blind conversion. it's very simple, using google, to find these sites. but if you can't do it, let me know and i will give you some very specific pointers where i got text. until we have a scan-set online to check for errors, i'm relatively satisfied that my text is accurate now. how i boiled it down from several sources is irrelevant. -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] Re: here ya go, joey
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

just so y'all understand, i sent joey the .html version of my "alice" that passes the validator -- backchannel -- and that's what his post was about... and now i realize that "his" user agent is one that he's programming himself... i'm happy to help another programmer track down some idiosyncrasies, joey, and i'll send you a report backchannel. > Now, just to check my understanding, > this is a document that went > from PG-TEI -> zml -> HTML? i started with plain-ascii text-files -- the origin of which is irrelevant -- and compared them all to tweak a consensus copy that was good .zml. i then ran that through my text-to-html converter. for alice, i did this long ago, and might have hand-tweaked things after that conversion, as my converter is still a work-in-progress, i can't remember. last friday, you might or might not recall, i turned my focus to "passing the validator" -- only because i'm preparing a submission to project gutenberg for a friend -- which informed me of some small tweaks needed to jump through that hoop. i applied those tweaks to the alice .html when marcello tried to make "validation" an issue here... to give you an idea of the necessary changes, > <center><h3><a href="#toc"> chapter one </a></h3></center> passes the validator, but > <h3><center><a href="#toc"> chapter one </a></center></h3> does not. it wants the header tag nested inside the center tag, not vice-versa. since "the validator knows html better than i do", i'm sure there is some "good" reason for this discrepancy, but i don't know -- or care -- what it might be, because both ways work fine in 99% of the browsers out there in the installed base. call me a heretic, but i don't care about the technoids and their "seal of approval" that my .html is written in their preferred style. as long as it works, i'm done with it, and any more time invested is a waste of my time. as i said, i understand why project gutenberg requires validation -- because they cannot scrutinize every .html file that is submitted to them to ensure that "it works" -- so when i am submitting a file i'll make sure that it validates. but otherwise, i will make sure my converter outputs files that do _not_ validate, since i don't want any of my "antagonists" here using _my_program_ to further their technoid aims which are directly contrary to my own... -bowerbird

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