Re: [OT] : Open Source from the user perspective (was Re: [EE]: opinion on Willem programmer?)

Gerhard Fiedler <lists <at> connectionbrazil.com> writes:
> So far I also haven't had any problems reading older files with newer
> software from that "censored" manufacturer. (Which shouldn't be constructed
> to mean that I don't think that using open formats is a good thing.)

Try to run a game from that period on a new machine. Preferably a character mode
one that relies on display quirks of a certain kind (CGA 'secret modes',
Hercules, where are you?). Not to mention timing loops (there is shim software
that is supposed to fix that). Brr.

With formats, I have my own bad experiences and those of close relatives whose
irreplaceable autobiographies were written on ancient versions of something or
other and which they were no longer able to open 10 years later. I had to tinker
with scripts and filters for two weeks until I pried a reasonable, horribly
mangled in formatting, plain text version out of the binary clutches of whatever
it was that was used to scramble the data on the floppy disks I got by snail
mail (!). Diacritics and other important stuff like special guilemettes used in
certain languages for quotations got lost and there were 120+ pages to correct.
Rendering this with minimal markup in TeX took all of 30 seconds. The result is
now safely stored as a tiny TeX source file that includes the plain text
chapters and as PDF, PS and so on, and I am confident that there will be no
further problems of this nature. If there had been a graphic in the original it
would have been lost. Before choosing TeX I had a brief thought of just running
the plain text through nroff/groff and trust it as is. By the way, their (my
elderly relative's) email does not work *again*. I *wonder* how come my email
never seems to be broken. Lucky guess?

Peter

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