Re: Technology evolution and ascii pics

Pete Casso wrote:
> 
> This article is a rather long essay without cute pics  ;-))
>...
> This essay is to first describe the on-going technology evolution and
> to subsequently suggest what we can do to protect our ascii pics.

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:mt-2::::`.
__::::(/:;:\
;;`.::`\/\;:\
  \;\:::\;\;:|
+----\:,-|---------------------------+
|:::..`._,    REPORT CARD            |
|:..   Mid-year essay assignment     |
|.                                   |
| Author: PeteCasso                  |
| Marker: Matthew Thomas             |
| ---------------------------------- |
| STRUCTURE                          |
|   Generally good, but too much     |
|   of `here's the nth section'.  B- |
|                                    |
| CONTENT                            |
|   Good. Some well-thought-out      |
|   ideas.                        B+ |
|                                    |
| GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION            |
|   Too many run-on sentences.       |
|   Occasional lapse into slang.  C+ |
| ---------------------------------- |
| OVERALL GRADE:                  B  |
| ---------------------------------- |
|                                 ___|
> Signed: Matthew Thomas          \:/
|                                 |/
+---------------------------------'

Some comments ...

>...
> => The simple, plain vanilla, text editors built into email and
> newsgroup software are evolving towards more sophisticated word
> processors <=
> 
> These email and newsgroup software with their built-in word processors
> need to be sold to the buying public, 

Whether we need to buy them is another matter. :-)

>                                       and therefore need to have
> features that makes life easier for the user community at large.

I agree with that in general -- people will be more impressed by the
appearance of bold, italic, font color *etc* buttons in their message
composition windows, than they will be by being told the simple fact
that these `features' actually waste time by causing the sender to
concentrate on form rather than content. Consider how much longer
e-mails will take to write when you've got the tempation of changing the
font and layout all over the place ... As an aside, the same applies to
word processors themselves: windows festooned with toolbars, animated
help, and all that guff only distract people ... but I'm getting
sidetracked; that's a matter for news:comp.human-factors. The point is,
the problem is worse in e-mail, because so many of us need to get
e-mails written and sent quickly.

> One example of such a useful feature is the automatic elimination of a
> blank space that a hasty user has inadvertently left at the beginning
> of a line. How time consuming*, how user-friendly, how nice!

*I think Pete meant `time-saving' here. But this example in particular,
I do not understand. Is a `hasty user' *likely* to accidentally leave
spaces at the beginning of a line? I don't think so. I would understand
it if the program removed *all* duplicate spaces (including those at
the beginning of a line), on the grounds of being more
word-processor-ish; why word processors ever let you type two
consecutive spaces is a mystery to me. But just to remove a couple from
the beginning of a line seems bizarre.

> Well, what is nice for general purpose applications may not be so nice
> for a special purpose application such as ascii pics.
>...
> In time, other word processing features that are useful for general
> purpose applications such as automatic conversion to curly/smart
> quotes, automatic capitalization, automatic conversion of a top line
> to a header, etc will make their way into email and newsgroup
> software. That means, that in time, email and newsgroup software are
> more and more likely to do damage to ascii pics.

In that regard I think we ASCII artists are starting to feel like
stonemasons, or cobblers, or whatever -- in this era, except on special
occasions, our craft is becoming obsolete. (Aargh! Heresy! Burn Matthew
at the stake! ...) As time goes on, all the reasons for ASCII art will
disappear -- referring to the FAQ here: (1) the universal text format
will be HTML; (2) the difference in file size between ASCII art and
pictures will be irrelevant, as sound and video files make even the
largest GIF trivial in size; and (3) we will be able to copy pictures
of any sort from one file to another just by dragging the mouse (or
whatever); so we will only be left with (4) -- `it's fun to do'.

>...
> What about the long term solutions? How can we protect our ascii pics
> in this changing world in the long run?
> 
> Well, we need to create a simple world again, where maker and viewer
> of ascii pics use essentially the same tools.
>...
> However, there is an html standard that we can use to create such a
> simple world again, one that works for ascii pics for the global
> Internet. And, as we have seen from past discussions in this newsgroup
> (or were these discussions more like wars  ;-))  all we need is a
> rather small subset of carefully chosen html tags to make sure that
> both maker and viewer see the same ascii pic.

I'm sorry, but this simply isn't true. HTML is not a WYSIWIS
(what-you-see-is-what-I-see) medium, and never will be, due to the
variety of software programs, OSs, and machines used to view it, and
the variety of users who use those software programs, OSs, and
machines. Despite <PRE>, <FONT> and all the rest of it, there is no
getting away from the fact that HTML was designed as a *semantic*
language, and the way particular HTML tags are rendered (or ignored)
depends on all these things. (A few examples: the Nokia Communicator,
the lynx and Opera Web browsers, and style sheets.)

ASCII, on the other hand, very nearly is a WYSIWIS medium. The `very
nearly' is due to the use of serif and sans-serif fonts and fonts of
different aspect ratios, but these differences are trivial in most
cases.

> In other words, the maker of the ascii pic provides display
> instructions in the form of html tags to the viewing tool, in order to
> make sure that the viewing tool displays the ascii pic correctly. This
> is to be contrasted to the use of the built-in word processors of
> email and newsgroup software.

The only HTML tags required for ASCII art are <PRE> and </PRE>;
Netscape Composer has a `Formatted' choice in its style menu which
inserts these (although that's hardly obvious, is it?)

>...
> on the one hand, entrenched technologies tend to
> live "forever" ... typewrite[r]s are still being used. On the other
> hand, Internet technologies including email and newsgroup technologies
> are evolving at break-neck speeds ... Netscape 4.0.5 that I installed
> a few days ago has _html_ as the default option for email and
> newsgroups, _not) plain text.

Yes :-( . I mentioned this when writing the FAQ last year.
Overeagerness on Netscape's part, I think, as well as a reckless
disregard for bandwidth.

>...
> The Dreaded Psychopath Pete Casso

I think there is an alternative long-term strategy, and that is to
petition Mozilla.org, and other e-mail program producers, to provide
easier selection of whether a message is to be sent as plain text or in
HTML -- for example, some sort of drop-down menu in the composition
window. This wouldn't be just for us a.a-aers; many, many people have
ASCII art of some description in their sig files alone, and of course
some people realize the stupidity (described above) of including fancy
formatting in messages which are going to be read and deleted within
minutes.

Well, that's my two pennies worth.
-- __
  /_/\   Matthew Thomas, who thought about drawing a picture of two
 _\_\/_  pennies, but in the end just couldn't be bothered :-P
/ /\/_/\ My real address is mpt26 @ student . canterbury . ac . nz
\_\/\_\/ THE ASCII ART FAQ: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/faq.htm

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