tying the bag together again...

Well, well, well, that's a lot of emotional BS!  Let me pick up on just
one of those!

>HTML and Javascript is MADE of ascii, the ascii art "core" of those

Now you want to position html and javascript as within the scope of the
ascii standard? I think we need to agree to disagree on many things!

   ,,
  ( ">
 ,(->)->  http://members.aol.com/petecasso
(  ^^
 Frogstein and Birdstein (ascii art comic strips)
  Jump, Frogstein, Jump! (animated cartoons)
   Style, Birdstein, Style! (Text Art Plus)
    Fly, Birdstein, Fly! (Animated Text Art Plus)

PC wrote, in many letters:
> You are not ROFL, Shanakastein, you feel haunted by the out of the blue
> sky BS that you produced in the past. I held up the mirror, not
> specifically for you, but you looked into the mirror, ha!
>
> Well, perhaps others will learn from this experience too!

What "experience"? (and that "I held out the mirror" stuff... isn't that
what 7-year-old children say when somebody says something to them that
feels unpleasantly true?) What "out of the sky BS"? The only "out of the
sky BS" I have heard in this group lately comes from YOU PC!

> Well, the fact is that html and javascript issues have been and are being
> posted and replied to on this newsgroup, even by Veronicastein (and others)
> who claims to be against it. This is pollution of this newsgroup in
> Veronicastein's own words.
>
> I myself do not post and do not reply to html and javascript issues on
> this newsgroup, and yet I am not against it. On the contrary, I am in favor
> of it!
>
> Reality has already overtaken pro and con statements, not just
> Veronicastein, but also Spunkystein, flumpystein, LLizardstein, Hippostein
> and many others have posted and responded to html and javascript issues on
> this newsgroup and will continue to do so in the future. They are simply
> going with the times, and I say, why not?

HTML and Javascript is MADE of ascii, the ascii art "core" of those
things can still be very easily "extracted" or "converted" for those who
like to do that. As a visitor to a homepage you might not even notice if
you copy a picture from a "pure" text file or from an HTML document.
Discussing how to present ascii pictures in HTML here is quite ok,
discussing how to make frames or tables in HTML is not ok here. (I don't
know why I try to tell you the same thing again. Read Bo Elovson Grey's
beautiful essay on the subject. If you still don't understand what ascii
is about then please just take the hint sent to you from a general crowd
here and get lost!)

> ascii caters to the lowest common denominator (i.e. a text editor) _only_
> if the file is already on your hard disk. Until it lands there, you need
> email/newsgroup/web clients, i.e. more elaborate programs than text
> editors, or else, you will not be able to view the ascii either.
>

My email program is MUCH simpler than my text editor... (you have
obviously never seen a simple and efficient mail program or you wouldn't
talk like that). (Again I urge you to read Bo Elovson Grey's little
explanation on what the different file types look like from the
computer's point of view. If you feel that you are not interested in the
computer's point of view then that indicates that you don't know very
much about computers. If that is the case then stop yelling about things
you know nothing about)

> And vice versa, a typical Internet user with Netscape or IE (or other
> Internet programs) can view ascii, html, gif, Shockwave, all with the same
> convenience, no difference at all! 
>

What programs does "a typical Internet user" have? I suspect that a
majority of "typical Internet users" can't afford the latest and
flashiest programs. I suspect that there are lots of people out there
using programs like mosaic or lynx... (lynx is a VERY nice little
program, you should try it, it's not in the least bit "flashy", just
bloody efficient.....)

> As you see, the "viewable on all computers" argument is pretty weak ...
>

is it really? (I have already heard complaints against that monster post
with html and gif images that I made... That would indicate that there
are people out there who are not too happy about reading that kind of
stuff...)

> The flipside of the coin/this issue, editing vs. viewing, i.e. ascii can
> be edited very easily , is a curse in disguise, i.e. initials
> erased/replaced.

so? I can erase stuff from a gif as well...

[ 8< ]

> I did make systematic file size comparisons about six or seven months ago.
> You can very quickly tell how large the exact file sizes of my cartoons
> are. For example, the file size of a panel of 66 x 30 is exactly 1980 bytes
> (pure ascii). Converted into gif, the file size will be 2.8 kb, just 40%
> larger than the pure ascii file (this assumes that you know how to keep gif
> file sizes small.) 
> 

I did the same thing with a randomly picked picture. I got a gif image
that had two colours (black and white, you can't get less...) and it was
nine times bigger than the original text file... I repeated the test
with another randomly picked picture, this time the gif was five times
bigger than the ascii... And then a third time, with a third picture,
this time the gif was six times bigger than the ascii... In this
experiment I left no white "border" around the black pixels in the gif
and I also left no unnecessary "whitespace" around the ascii picture.
The program I "grabbed" the images from was my normal text editor, whose
font cannot be changed.

> Assuming that you download at 1 kb/s, there is only a small difference in
> download time, 2 seconds vs. 2.8 seconds.
> 

It usually takes me much longer to load a gif the size of "half a
screen" than it takes me to load "half a screen" full of text...

> Moreover, gif renders a lot cleaner than html/ascii on the web.

What do you mean when you say "renders a lot cleaner"? (I'm sorry, but
that is nonsense, it doesn't mean anything if you don't explain it)

> Those and
> a few other factors made me convert ascii/html to gif, although the pics
> remain the same. Ha, there will be flames!
>

What do you mean by "remain the same"? I say that that is exactly what
they do not do. (If you think that a gif looks exactly the same on all
computers then you have a lot to learn....)

> Check the infamous DejaNews archives for further details, but the above is
> the essence. You will find that the file size argument is pretty weak.
> 

Download these two pages:

http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/ascii/ASCII1.HTML

(55 "Page Downs" big in my Netscape)

and:

http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/lines/LINES.HTML

(9 "Page Downs" big in my Netscape)

Then tell me which took longer time to load...

(I got 4.9 seconds on the first page which was six times "bigger"
(counted in "Page Downs" in my Netscape, these figures might be a little
bit different depending on what program you use to view them with) but
filled with ascii images and 38.6 seconds on the second page, which was
filled with gif images... I have a FAST computer and a FAST
connection... What figures do other people here get for these two
files?)

> >did you take that computer science course yet?
> Dear Veronicastein, in case you have not noticed yet, I have been in ascii

What do you mean by "I have been in ascii"? (Again what you say is just
nonsense, you have to express yourself more clearly)

> ... continuing the journey ... ha, more flames!

Call it what you want, but try to notice how many of us that don't agree
with you, then just consider the possibility that you could be wrong...

-- 
:)
Veronica Karlsson
( e93...@sm.luth.se  http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/ )