[Gllug] [OT] Largest mailbox EVER!

[Rev Simon Rumble]

On Wed 19 Nov, Jason Clifford bloviated thus:

> If you need to send a document where formatting is significant either 
> print it out and post it or make a PDF and attach it to a brief email.
> 
> In almost all business communication formatting of text is not 
> significant. Well written business communication doesn't need it.

That's just not true.  I'm a technical author and often send, by
email, small snippets of documentation to developers to check I've got
it right/not missed anything.  Formatting conventions are used in
documentation to reduce the size of descriptions.  A simple example is
the "path" we add before any screenshot which describes the process
used to get to that screen.

Lose the formatting, lose the meaning.  You're advocating I create an
entire new document (MS Word, PDF, whatever) just to send a small
snippet of documentation to a developer?  Or print it?  (we have
developers working from home, in Israel and in Sydney)  Sorry buddy,
but here in the real world...

Go and have a look at a man page on a plain ascii terminal, then on a
terminal that supports vt100 and tell me there isn't more information
on the vt100 terminal.

-- 
Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net>
www.rumble.net

Imagine a very committed funeral home director, whose
proudest achievement in adulthood was to be elected
president of the Queenbeyan and District Funeral Home
Directors' Association--then halve his personality and
halve it again, and you have pretty well got John Howard.

- Bill Bryson from "Down Under"

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