From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 94 23:19:28 PST
To: jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)
Subject: Re: I Like ASCII, not MIME and Other Fancy Crap
In-Reply-To: <aaf34c0004021004ba1b@[132.162.201.201]>
Message-ID: <199411190719.XAA08956@netcom3.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
...
> return to the amount of work you put in.  A well done html document is, in
> my opinion, actually much easier to read then a straight ascii document,
> and the amount of effort neccesary to turn ascii to html is relatively
> minimal.

Well, I've looked at maybe 50 home pages now, with "lynx," and I'm not
convinced that html docs are "much easier to read" than straight text.
Perhaps the "well done" qualifier is what I haven't yet seen (but 50
home pages is a pretty fair sample).

In any case, the problem is not just html. On a Smalltalk mailing list
I'm on, for example, they're grappling with how to distribute docs to
us over the Net. A tower of Babel! Html, Replica (tm), FrameView (tm),
PostScript (tm), and Acrobat (tm) are just some of the options. As of
last night, they (the vendor running the list) couldn't even give us
a _price list_ because they'd generated the price list using the nice
table features of FrameMaker, but then couldn't extract the text...so
we had to wait to get onto their ftp site (limit of 3 at a time) and
"get" the Replica (tm) version! (Replica is like Adobe's "Acrobat.")

(And if _they_ can't get the plain text out of their fancy-formatted
document, how the hell can we get it out and into our spreadsheets?
Answer, by cutting-and-pasting, if it still works. [Please don't send
me "workaounds."])

My point? Much wheel-spinning. Like trying to read Amanda's "X11" GIF,
and then wondering if my Netcom disk quota was being sucked up by a
hidden file somewhere! Or jumping through hoops to download a
PGP-encrypted note to my home machine, decrypting it, only to find a
"Like, wow, this PGP sure is neat! Like, rock on, dude!" message
awaiting me!

I'm trying not to just flame. I see these "neat things" as a tower of
Babel. I see mail breaking down as folks deviate from ASCII and
"overload" it with extra cruft.

I see a proliferation of "gurus" and "wizards" needed to make things
work. [A recurring theme of this note is that people are very helpful,
and send advice. But little of the advice is usable, for various
reasons. So don't send it to me! :-} ]

> Just my opinion, of course. I agree with you that there is a problem when
> too much time and energy is spent on prettifying trimming rather then on
> content, but I'm not sure that html is really representative of this.
> 
> Have you tried using MacWeb with the auto-loading of images turned off?
> Like I said, I find it easier to extract the relevant information quickly
> out of a html-formatted text then a straight ascii text.  And we all know
> that when you are on the net, being able to extract relevant information
> quickly is vital.  (There's a whole nother treatise waiting to be written
> there.)

No, I haven't tried MacWeb, or NetScape, except as demos and on the
machines of others. I don't have a SLIP or PPP connection

(Please don't send me helpful tips on how to get such accounts! It
seems that every time I mention such things, I get several notes
suggesting how all would be solved if I switched to Unix, abandoned
Netcom, got my own T1 line, etc. Folks, I'm flattered that you care,
but the reason I don't have SLIP or PPP is because I haven't bothered
yet. Waiting for 28.8 vs. ISDN to shake out, waiting for a local
provider to appear to my satisfaction--don't tell me about either
ScruzNet or SenseMedia, as I know about them--and, most importantly,
waiting for a _real good reason_ to spend the time switching to a new
set of tools. Right now, I'm not in a hurry.)

So far, "cruising the Web" and looking at pictures of comets hitting
Jupiter or coffeepots about to boil just doesn't cut it. (I get CNN,
so I see all the comet hits I need, at higher resolution. Like porno
images which are sharper, cheaper, and better in magazines, I just
don't "get" the idea of surfing the Net or Web for images.) 

I'm a text/idea person, as you may have noticed, and the Web is no
substitute for either mailing lists or newsgroups. [And anticipating
more helpful comments, I understand that some folks use Mosaic,
MacWeb, etc., as newsreaders and mailers. Again, I see enough problems
and gotchas being debated to make me want to wait...maybe NetScape 1.1
will be my reason to convert.]

If I'm ranting, I apologize. I'm not angry at any one person, just at
the whole confusing mess it is all becoming. A zillion variants of
PGP, front-ends, shells, etc. A mail system that is rapidly losing its
"lingua franca" status (how ironic that I can't read the mail sent to
me by some French conference organizers, except circuitously). 

We are getting bogged down in banal details and platform
idiosyncracies. Dozens of platforms, dozens of flavors of Unix and
other operating systems, half a dozen major display options (as noted
above), lots of image formats (at least that's relatively
standardized, to GIF, PICT, JPEG, etc....and yet many people spend
_days_ trying to convert, download, uncompress, read, display, etc.)

There's got to be a better way.

--Tim May





-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tcmay