----- Original Message ----- From: Gutenberg9443@aol.com

In a message dated 11/21/2004 2:07:20 AM Mountain Standard Time, traverso@dm.unipi.it writes:

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Here too you are assuming that other people use the same tools that you use. A good tool is one that adapts >>itself to an unknown situation, and does not make assumptions. >>Discarding page numbers in reference works makes assumptions on >>other people's working methods; the result is a less flexible tool.

I didn't assume. I asked. Some ISPs carry formatting over and some don't. I have no idea what ISP someone I don't know is using or what that ISP might do with formatting.

Actually, the ISP has nothing to do with it... What shows up is dependent on what program you are using to read the e-mail. Just a quick FYI.

A good tool is one that can be used for at least 50 things besides the one it is designed for. You can use two bricks to kill a fly, if you can figure out how to make the fly stay on the bottom brick long enough for you to clap the top brick on top of it. You can use bricks and boards to make a bookcase. You can make a street out of bricks. Go away and think of 47 other uses for bricks. Then talk to me about tools.

I am not recommending discarding page numbers in reference books. I am suggesting that the majority of books already posted do not necessitate going back and redoing to insert the page numbers.

Well, you can kill that same fly by running over it with a semi truck ... but that doesn't make either one a GOOD tool for the job. Carlos' point (which was worded nicely despite your reaction to it) is that you have to create a system that works despite not knowing the exact environment it will be used in. This is why so many people had problems with bowerbird's ZML viewer. It required everyone to be using a specific reader program that you simply cannot guarantee will be in use.

It's like those old Tom Swift books I was recently accused of reading

Unless I missed a message somewhere ... someone was using the Tom Swifts as an example of a type of book for a particular point. It was not a listing of what you read or don't read.

But do enough people want to write learned papers on Tom Swift, or Tarzan, or Elsie Dinsmore, or The Wizard of Oz, for it to be reasonable for me to demand that all the Tom Swift, Tarzan, Elsie Dinsmore, and Wizard of Oz books to be pulled down until somebody has time to rescan them and keep all the page numbers this time?

No one has ever said that (unless, again, I missed a message). Many people have said that they will need to be redone at some future point to put that information back in. (Jon Noring is the biggest proponent of this.)

By the way, since so many people seem to know better than I do what I'm reading at present, I'll save them the trouble of guessing.

This type of wording is what starts flame wars. And it is coming from your side. Please calm down a little here. No one has tried to start a flame war, but I can see people getting defensive in reply to your recent messages and it will lead to some things being said that probably shouldn't be.

What have I ever done to you to make you want to bite my head off every time I post? I can't help being autistic. I was born autistic. You can help being a walking, talking, grouch box.

Anne

All I can tell you, Anne, is that Carlos did NOT bite your head off. Rather, he explained the fallacies he saw in your argument. Carlos is actually one of the more even tempered folks around here. He won't hold back on pointing out things he disagrees with, but I've never seen him be a "walking, talking, grouch box." Josh