Re: Clear communication: (was RE: Re: Accessibility of "CHM" format resources)

On 6/7/05, David Dorward <david@dorward.me.uk> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 10:49:33AM -0400, Orion Adrian wrote:
> 
> > I would first point out that I'm not a website. While my personal
> > communication style is unique or at least non-standard, it doesn't
> > mean that I don't know what I'm talking about.
> 
> Perhaps not, but it could well mean that WE don't know what you are
> talking about. We are discussing a technical subject on this mailing
> list, not art, precision is called for in the language used.
> 
> > I never said by myself. And I never implied vendor lock-in. Standards
> > are to be written by the most responsive body. Once known, the
> > Microsoft Office formats have been standardized on.
> 
> Once the .doc format was reverse-engineered word processors other then
> MS Word still have difficultly with complex documents (since the
> reverse engineering is imperfect). For that matter, different versions
> of Word have problems! (I seem to recall a few years ago I had to
> convert a word document into a more recent version of .doc using Word
> Perfect since MS Word couldn't cope!)

Defacto standards can become open standards if the company chooses to
do so. I'm not an advocate of Microsoft. They had the potential, but
let it slide. Opportunity lost.

> Is Microsoft really the most responsive body anyway? When the majority
> of desktops run MS Office, their format becomes a defacto standard
> through inertia / monopoly control, not through the quality of the
> format.

Well up until about IE 6 they were incredibly responsive. They
introduced a slew of features they thought developers wanted (mostly
because developers asked). While Microsoft may not have made the best
decisions, they did make at the time (remember Netscape 4 versus IE 6)
a very competative browser with a lot of useful features. Netscape
couldn't handle them, but neither could it handle the specs that were
coming out at the time (e.g full CSS support).

> > What I felt almost immediately in the response to saying that I was a
> > CSS master programmer was that rather than deal with the comments I
> > was making or asking me to elaborate, I felt people immediately
> > focusing in on the statement which was mearly meant to demonstrate
> > understanding and time spent.
> 
> My point exactly. Since you used terms (like "programmer")
> incorrectly, you utterly failed to demonstrate understanding and time
> spent. It made you *appear* to be an ignorant newbie with far less
> understanding then you claim. People do not enjoy being told they are
> wrong, let alone being told they are wrong by someone who appears to
> lack the knowledge and experience to make such a judgement.

The greatest of all generations seem to be those who decide that the
rules don't apply to them and create something totally unlike the
world has even seen. People are the greatest impediment to progress.
We, as a body, can listen to anyone who has an opinion hoping to gleam
whatever we can or we can dismiss prematurely.

I never once said anyone was wrong. I dissed their work. But that's
what this is for right? This is an open forum where people can comment
on specs and documents in order to make them better. I feel that if
one gets too attached to their own work, they can never improve.
Attachment is the enemy as the Buddhists would say.

Orion Adrian

Received on Tuesday, 7 June 2005 15:24:17 UTC