The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Renate

I wouldn't know, it's been so long since I touched it.
The biggest problem was that it used CR/LF for line endings.
I don't know if they've seen the light.

Most any usage of files nowadays allows a "*nix" ending of LF even if they don't advertise it.

On Android I have my own test editor.
It's very simple.
The one thing it does is save a new version every time it closes.
The idea is that it's mostly for collecting one-offs and making sure that I don't lose anything.

I'm curious: Why is CR/LF an issue when it comes to ending lines? I'm not an expert, but I would think that putting a carriage return followed by a line feed would result in a blank line after each paragraph. If I'm wrong please feel free to correct me.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=763

I liked a meme a bit ago:
M-soft survey asks "What feature of Edge do you use most often?".
User returns a screen shot of arrow pointing to the UNINSTALL button.

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I liked a meme a bit ago:
M-soft survey asks "What feature of Edge do you use most often?".
User returns a screen shot of arrow pointing to the UNINSTALL button.

yes, and I'm always terrified about clicking Microsoft's help buttons, as they spawn millions of msedge.exe processes.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I'm curious: Why is CR/LF an issue when it comes to ending lines? I'm not an expert, but I would think that putting a carriage return followed by a line feed would result in a blank line after each paragraph. If I'm wrong please feel free to correct me.

MacOS and Linux/Unix systems use the naked LF as the end of line and a new line is started 1 line down. Windows systems use a CR/LF pair where the LF moves 1 line down but does not move the cursor to the start of line—that task is left to the CR.

The issue is that depending on how a program is written, a MacOS/Linux/Unix system can do strange things when fed a configuration file with CR/LF EOLs including screwing up comparisons (trueCR is not the same as true).

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I'm curious: Why is CR/LF an issue when it comes to ending lines? I'm not an expert, but I would think that putting a carriage return followed by a line feed would result in a blank line after each paragraph. If I'm wrong please feel free to correct me.

Early teleprinters (like the Teletype Model 15) used a fixed platen, a moveable carriage. The original 5 bit Baudot code had been extended to work with typewriter-like devices (instead of printing paper stripes). Two control codes were added, Carriage Return and Line Feed. These were regarded as independent movements. Moving the heavy carriage back 8 inches took a lot of time in contrast to rolling the platen 1/6 of an inch. So CR always preceded LF. In modern usage LF has been rebranded New Line and implicitly includes a CR. Unless you're overprinting a single line there is no reason to use anything besides LF (NL). For command line text usage of dynamic statistics Backspace is used to redo a field. Most programs that accept text can handle CR/LF or LF. Apple decided to use just CR for a while which really messed things up. Using just a single code for the logical end of a line makes sense. Unfortunately there are still standards that explicitly require CR/LF like HTTP/HTTPS. All headers for the web are required to have CR/LF although the content can switch to just LF.

Phew. That's a long one. Do people like it more when I break it into lines or leave it free flowing?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Renate

Early teleprinters (like the Teletype Model 15) used a fixed platen, a moveable carriage. The original 5 bit Baudot code had been extended to work with typewriter-like devices (instead of printing paper stripes). Two control codes were added, Carriage Return and Line Feed. These were regarded as independent movements. Moving the heavy carriage back 8 inches took a lot of time in contrast to rolling the platen 1/6 of an inch. So CR always preceded LF.

In modern usage LF has been rebranded New Line and implicitly includes a CR. Unless you're overprinting a single line there is no reason to use anything besides LF (NL). For command line text usage of dynamic statistics Backspace is used to redo a field. — dynamic statistics, redo a field, in a command line — eh what

Most programs that accept text can handle CR/LF or LF. Apple decided to use just CR for a while which really messed things up. Using just a single code for the logical end of a line makes sense. Unfortunately there are still standards that explicitly require CR/LF like HTTP/HTTPS. All headers for the web are required to have CR/LF although the content can switch to just LF.

Phew. That's a long one. Do people like it more when I break it into lines or leave it free flowing?

A wall of text is anything but 'free flowing'.

They discourage self editing as-you-go by the writer - see example above. And they give no hint to the reader to ask 'did I get that"- and if not go back and reread. And they encourage TL:DR responses.

---

Now, how come there's no Miller Column add-on for Windows File Explorer - only want it occasionally.

BR

[Renate]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

A wall of text is anything but 'free flowing'.

People who are viewing this on a 2" wide display would probably prefer it without manual line breaks as that would turn it all jaggedy.

On the other hand, wide screen viewing without any div width is annoying too.
There probably should be some way to set the max width for large screens.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Renate

Early teleprinters (like the Teletype Model 15) used a fixed platen, a moveable carriage. The original 5 bit Baudot code had been extended to work with typewriter-like devices (instead of printing paper stripes). Two control codes were added, Carriage Return and Line Feed. These were regarded as independent movements. Moving the heavy carriage back 8 inches took a lot of time in contrast to rolling the platen 1/6 of an inch. So CR always preceded LF. In modern usage LF has been rebranded New Line and implicitly includes a CR. Unless you're overprinting a single line there is no reason to use anything besides LF (NL). For command line text usage of dynamic statistics Backspace is used to redo a field. Most programs that accept text can handle CR/LF or LF. Apple decided to use just CR for a while which really messed things up. Using just a single code for the logical end of a line makes sense. Unfortunately there are still standards that explicitly require CR/LF like HTTP/HTTPS. All headers for the web are required to have CR/LF although the content can switch to just LF.

Phew. That's a long one. Do people like it more when I break it into lines or leave it free flowing?

I prefer there to be paragraph breaks (with a blank line between the paragraphs) when a post moves to a new part of the topic. Often, I've found a wall of text a bit difficult to read, and a first-line indent is less readable than separating the paragraphs with a blank line. To me, although first-line indents made sense in the days when documents were printed on paper to save paper, with electronic documents that is not an issue since I don't think it affects the size of the document.

Returning to topic, based on what you wrote it seems that the issue is an incompatibility between the operating systems. To me, only a carriage return should be needed as long as it always does the following: (1) it moves the cursor to the next line and (2) the cursor is at the beginning of that line. It's basically the same thing that happens with a typewriter. This is different from a line break, where it doesn't start a new paragraph it just moves the cursor to the next line so it is still part of the same paragraph. However, one possibility is that the reason a line feed is needed after a carriage return is to make it explicit that the cursor move to the next line.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Renate

People who are viewing this on a 2" wide display would probably prefer it without manual line breaks as that would turn it all jaggedy.

On the other hand, wide screen viewing without any div width is annoying too.
There probably should be some way to set the max width for large screens.

When I look at a WSJ item in the News app in my iPhone I see the same paragraphs I see in the WSJ I buy at the news stand.

BR

[Renate]

You can always temporarily reduce the width of your browser window.