Writing text

How do you prefer to write text


  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
Depends. All of the above.

I'm old and old-fashioned, so a lot of what I do is cleartext (ASCII, with a carriage return every <80 characters). That's for example what I use for e-mail format.

At work, a significant fraction (perhaps 25%) of my writing is source code, so there I use Python, C++, Java, SQL, Go, whatever language is appropriate, typed into emacs or a GUI editor.

A lot of stuff that has to be shared is in word processor formats. Used to use a lot of Word, but today it is mostly Google Docs, because it is much more convenient (no need to install any software, no need to get a license or an extra account). For work (where most of the writing actually happens), I use whatever my employer recommends or requires (since I work in the computer industry, that ends up meaning: whatever my employer builds).

I still use LaTeX occasionally for scientific documents: Research reports, conference submissions, and so on.
 
I found myself with the following mixed feeling.
Writing a very large document in latex and then finding out markdown can be converted to many more formats including html+ajax.
Once I had a boss who told me MS-Word was the company standard.
 
Wow, I was just casually was reading this, never having used latex for any practical purpose, then I looked up the "gummi" latex editor. And realized this is a perfect way to compile out of print books from archive.org.

Just download the plaintext version of the book and recompile it in latex to make it look however you want.
 
So this turns into this {see attached}.
The kile latex editor assists better with syntax {i never used latex syntax before}.
 

Attachments

  • 10mvi.pdf
    58.6 KB · Views: 163
Org-mode is my way to go since 5 years.
It's the kind of things that you regret not giving a shot years ago when you first heard of it because you thought it's too nerdy.
I use Org-mode with Emacs, Emacs doom is my favourite distribution with evil mode enabled.
In my smartphone orgzly is my (org-mode) note taking app, I sync my notes via Dropbox to my workstation.
 
Format depends on the purpose. Might be plain text. Otherwise:
  • Markdown for something to flexibly publish in different target formats, e.g. HTML
  • LaTeX for a print document where I want full control over the final layout
I can't help but ask. When did they start calling HTML markdown? When Markup started sounding so old and a new buzzword was agreed upon?

Because I only saw it recently for the first time, but have been writing Markup Languages over 20 years. Not once in that time did it ever occur to me to write extra code to make notes to myself on Leafpad when I could just open it and see what I typed.

Seems like less work, not to mention quicker. My speed as a syllable slinger is the stuff of water-cooler song and many the young tech savvy typist that have come to test their vi Copy&Paste skills against me, only to be left lying in the left margin, typing fingers twitching their final text...failing validation their final faceplam folly....

What a burden to bear.

I don't need indentation formatting to write Markup either. I'm pretty sure that's a Markdown thing Docker users came up with to make life more "simple".
 
When I write the few academic papers a year I tend to use LaTeX and (n)vi. The typical !}fmt series of keys becomes like a compulsion for me!

That said, sometimes I work with a number of other authors and some of them don't know what LaTeX is or even version control making it a little more of a painful experience. This isn't an age thing either, I work with older and younger guys and there is no real correlation. For this I tend to use Office 2003 in Wine.

I refuse to engage with services like Google Docs or Office 365. I just can't get motivated to start writing when using their services. It isn't that they are awkward to use as such, I have this weird niggling feeling in the back of my mind that I have been using computers for a while now so therefore I just deserve better. I have diminishing passion for my trade when I use them. A bit strange I know. I can't really explain it.
 
I currently use geany to edit .org mode files. The make command is set to "pandoc test.org -o test.html"
I'm a vi & emacs simpleton. The falcon browser
file:///usr/home/x/Test/test.html
refreshes automatic.
$ a^a $ renders latex.
Complex math i still must figure out.
 
I was a little confused with your meaning of "Markdown for something to flexibly publish in different target formats, e.g. HTML" and still am, but that's me in a nutshell. Not to be confused with me in the nuthouse.

Looks very neat and organized. That area of design never was my strong point. Something XHTML Frameset 1.0 allowed me to compensate for exceedingly well. I still have Markup that checks valid to taunt my Homie the Honorable drhowarddfine with.

The first thing I did was scanned what you had written:

FreeBSD never holds your hand (if you don’t count the excellent documentation). There’s no automatic configuration. The defaults mostly match a server workload; if you want to use it on a desktop, you have a lot of manual work to do and of course install many packages.

This should be like a checkbox on the Installation media for FreeBSD so when people complain how it's not like Linux we could say "You did read the Terms of Use before signed the waiver, didn't you?" That could be our standard thread-killer response to lay the blame where it belongs.

The second thing I always do is View the Source. Here are your metatags::
Code:
<meta charset="utf-8">  
<meta name="generator" content="pandoc">  
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes">  
<meta name="author" content="Felix Palmen felix@palmen-it.de">  
<meta name="dcterms.date" content="2017-06-08">  
<title>A beginners' guide away from scanf()</title>  
<style type="text/css">code{white-space: pre;}</style>  
<style type="text/css">

Here are the metatags I've picked up and carried over through the years:
Code:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=yes" /> 
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8" /> 
<meta name="description" content="How to build a FreeBSD Operating System desktop from scratch." /> 
<meta name="keywords" content="FreeBSD,BSD,UNIX,Linux,Windows,desktop,tutorial,guide,how to,OS,Operating System,computer,firewall,security,window manager,fluxbox,fluxbox styles,ports,portmaster,Ethernet,MAC,Media Access Control,spoof,hexadecimal,LAN,Internet Protocol Address,wallpapers,Trihexagonal,Demonica" /> 
<meta name="author" content="Trihexagonal" /> 
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" /> 
<meta name="robots" content="all" /> 
<meta name="revisit" content="7 days" /> <meta name="distribution" content="global" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" /> 
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> 
<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />

Are MSSmarttags no longer a thing? I thought that used that to steal your content, or some soul stealing sorcery to ward off with use of that talisman.

Good content listing of keywords are the black art of SEO. Spamming them with words not included in the content an abomination to Great Google to be cast out of Righteous Ranking Results.

Then, the true trial by fire of all web designers.Validation of your soul as spotless:


Repent and turn away from your content generator blaspheme so that it may be well with thee and sin no more, Brother.

Live Long and Prosper.
 
Yes. Drives me insane. I was writing XHTML 1.0 Strict when you were still in diapers boy!

Your Mother uses Dockers.

I was writing valid XHTML Transitional 1,0 at GeoCities when you were still hanging out at Wash U trying to pick up undergrads cutting class.
 
Vi or vim for software and documentation. If I want word-wrap, usually Pluma or Kate. Rarely I'll use LibreOffice if I want to get fancy-schmancy.
 
Trihexagonal I'll try again to better clarify my two bullet-points above ;)
  • Markdown is a simple format and I really like how it's still well-readable as text/plain. There are thousands of parsers and renderers, and with software like e.g. pandoc, you can convert it to anything you like; that's what I meant with "flexibly publish in different target formats".
  • For printing, I still prefer LaTeX, for several reasons. The typesetting it does automatically is still top notch, and it optionally allows you to exactly control the layout.
I don't really care about the meta tags, it's not like I'm doing business here ;) And well, I know HTML, but I think life is too short to write all your content directly in HTML :cool:. The "source" for the two documents I linked above looks like this: https://github.com/Zirias/webdocs/

From your validation results, I see I probably made a mistake in my custom CSS, will have a look at this ;)
 
When I write something I want to keep it looks just like this when I open it again in Leafpad, even years later in any text editor.
Code:
<?xml version='1.1' encoding='utf-8'?>
”."><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Note To Self</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
</head>
<body>
<p>I really don't see the point in writing all that extra stuff.</p>
<p>Not to mention it's a lot easier to open a text editor than open an .html page in Firefox to read the text file formatted like a webpage.</p>
<h1>Don't forget to get some coffee and sugar when grocery shopping.</h1>
</body>
</html>

But I want my site #1 Google ranking back so I'll sacrifice what it takes to satiate Great Google so as to not cast the Don't Be Evil evil eye my way.

The Russian Federation was my #2 biggest visitor next to the US.
 
When I write something I want to keep it looks just like this when I open it again in Leafpad, even years later in any text editor.
Code:
<?xml version='1.1' encoding='utf-8'?>
”."><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Note To Self</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
</head>
<body>
<p>I really don't see the point in writing all that extra stuff.</p>
<p>Not to mention it's a lot easier to open a text editor than open an .html page in Firefox to read the text file formatted like a webpage.</p>
<h1>Don't forget to get some coffee and sugar when grocery shopping.</h1>
</body>
</html>
This looks like a perfect example of a document that would profit from Markdown.

E.g. when I open my FreeBSD advocacy doc in a text editor, it looks like this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Zirias/webdocs/master/freebsd/advocacy.md

I think that's much better readable than something sprinkled with (XML or SGML) tags.
 
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