Comments on: Culture clashes II: PDF, XML and what’s in it for me?

By: Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:41:37 +0000

I think you’re right, although “two cultures” is probably an oversimplification. (Aren’t most dichotomies?)

By: zayıflama

zayıflama — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:46:03 +0000

I think we’re seeing some of the culture clash going on here.

By: Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:04:29 +0000

[If you happened by here when there was a comment #10 echoing exactly the same issues as comment #4: It's not gone because it's raising disadvantages of PDF or because it's redundant. It's gone because it's spam: The content was taken directly from another comment in order to legitimate the link behind the poster's name, thus gaining link love for the spam link. Didn't work for long; too bad the blog software didn't flag it immediately!]

By: Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:55:24 +0000

folbec: You raise a slightly different but cogent point. My problem with the Semantic Web is that, except for specialized cases, it requires far too much work during writing/creation to be likely to have good data. But yes, it also assumes honest and non-gamed data.
I’ve avoided it on this new site so far, but I’ve been, um, skeptical of the SW since first hearing about it–and, on the one occasion when I met Sir Tim B-L (we were both speaking on the same program), I said so. A cordial discussion that certainly didn’t change his mind–but didn’t convince me either. (Hey, I’ll never be famous, but I’ve had brushes…consistently demonstrating that I’m no good at being an Impressed Follower.)

By: folbec

folbec — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:07:26 +0000

“But, you know, I think you want more than HTML. I think you want semantics–XML or better. ”
The trouble with the “semantic web” is that the first day it starts gaining traction, people will start gaming the semantic tags to gain better exposure (since exposure means money and fame), the same way they are gaming the search engine hint keywords, and this will turn into a ugly arm race that will destroy the whole idea (getting significant, non sponsored, results in google is already difficult on a number of subjects, and google is AFAIK mostly discarding the search engine hint keywords of HTML)

By: laura

laura — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:04:46 +0000

Your html versions of C&I (plus the Readability plugin for Firefox, which makes the margins short enough for easy reading) mean that I can read it without printing it out, which I sometimes prefer. The PDFs are gorgeous, and I do appreciate your attention to typography, but sometimes I just don’t want to print things. But, you know, I deal. If the content is good enough, a reasonable person will generally find some way to deal with the form.

By: Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:45:16 +0000

…or “set of tools” with the s, if you prefer. Sigh.

By: Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Greg: You can set PDF to incorporate all typefaces–you have to do that to do books through Lulu, for example–in which case the results should be identical in all cases.
Otherwise–well, you have your preferred set of tool. “Why you ever need a ‘word processor’ anyway” may be fine for you, but not for me. Different people, different purposes, different tools. Fine–unless/until you’re saying that it’s *inappropriate* for me to use the tools I prefer. Or that what’s easy for you is automatically easy for a typical writer.
I think we’re seeing some of the culture clash going on here.

By: thiotimoline

thiotimoline — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:05:30 +0000

The problem with .pdfs is that they either open in another window or open within Acrobat in the browser. Having multiple windows is often inconvenient, while Acrobat within Firefox breaks standard key combinations (such as ctrl+t to open a new tab). I would much rather have the option of reading something a bit uglier without having to deal with either of these situations, if the link is primarily text-based; I agree that .pdfs are good for maps and similar.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:25:14 +0000

A few somewhat random thoughts:
It is all text, and anyone with a reasonable set of tools can mine your PDF’s or convert them to HTML if the layout is fairly linear (and even if not, it is just easier if it is linear).
It is not true that PDF renders identical and perfect results everywhere and all the time. That is somewhat of a fallacy. It can depend on the installed fonts, for instance.
One of the beauties of the typical Linux distribution is that saving as PDF is routine in most software, and translating among various formats is run of the mill and the tools and support readily available.
It is easy to use HTML as a quick and dirty formatting technique. It is easy to go from HTML or XML to PDF. Proper HTML can stand in for XML. It is easy to obtain or write your own filter to convert a personalized markdown langauge so that text can be converted to XML/HTML quickly.
In other words, you don’t have to chose. Just use mainly text … content oriented, not format or layout oriented efforts. Then you can play around with format, typography, etc. using many tools and produce many different kinds of products, and have fun and fill up your hard drive and the internet with only a few keystrokes! The average “text editor” now does fancy dancy spell checking (this has been true for years) and markdown works, so why you ever need a “word processor” anyway is kind of beyond me, except at the final stages, to make that XML/PDF/HTML/DOC product. If then.
HTML/XML does not produce the exact same thing on every viewing platform, but it does produce consistent results that will always *act* if not always *look* the same, unless the viewer is screwing around alot, and then that is the viewer’s problem.