Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Mon, 11 Jan 1993 14:53:12 CDT
From:         Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      Form over Content

5 Messages, 129 Lines
*-----
From: jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu (Lee Jaffe, Microcomputer & Network Services)
Subject: Re:  Form Over Content
A couple of observations about print, layout and page design:

Concerns about a good looking page pre-date computer-based
desktop publishing systems.  In fact, to win acceptance as
a reasonable means of communication, early print works had
to emulate hand-lettering, which had established the stan-
dards for quality.  Eventually, print techniques managed to
establish their own criteria for quality.  In a similar
fashion, DTP has been judged by those criteria.  For thos
e that care about a well-designed page, the standard is still
the letter press.  Eventually other criteria, things that
DTP systems can do better or letter presses cannot do at all,
will rise to the top.

I'm not surprised that someone whose singular fixation is
electronic books is ready to dismiss this tradition so easily.
The question those of us living in the real world need to
answer is whether those that need and use the information
will care or mind about the difference.  My guess is that
for certain things it will not be a problem and for others
it will.  For instance, I received a request from a faculty
member that wanted the full text of a play in ASCII so he
could edit an abridged version for performance.  I can also
see that those that want to do textual analysis or develop
concordances, word frequency lists or other research tools
from the text will be perfectly happy with this format.
And I suggest that these are important resources that li-
braries should be able to locate and retrieve for users.

However, we should remember Mr. Hart is selling.  He has a
product that he'd like to convince us is valuable, even
the best thing since sliced bread.  Sure he's going to
dismiss any concerns we have about missing features.  I
tend to bring up strange analogies but this one may be the
strangest.  I remember a _Candid Camera_ episode in which
a rental agent is trying to lease an apartment perfect in
every way but for the absence of a bathroom.  When the
would-be tenants finally notice the omission they can't
believe that anyone would try to rent an apartment without
a bathroom.  However, whatever they say, the agent is un-
daunted, pointing to what he considers compensating factors
-- extra closet space, no unpleasant odors, less cleaning
demand and much lower rent.  Does this have a familiar
feeling to anyone else?

-- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz
   jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu
*-----
From: Michael Friedman <mfriedma@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Form Over Content
Perhaps, but say that the case is "Mike Friedman gave a
convincing argument that some kind of location specification is
necessary" ^1

1 Collected e-mails of Mike Friedman, Page 1238

Maybe we should use paragraph number?

*------
From:    BOBRW@ids.net (Bob Rettew)
Subject: RE: Form Over Content
A reference to a line of etext being used for scholarly purposes, say to
analyze a canonical work of literature, _better_ have a way to let the
reader reference the standard print edition's page number, don't you
think? Or the utility of the citation apparatus is lost...

Besdides, pages (and sometimes paragraph and line numbers) are handy
subunits for easy, efficient referral.  Who wants to type "blah blah
bla" quotes when (Hart, 1992, 7) will do?  If etexts are to be useful
for scholarship and citation purposes, maybe we need a way to reference
_byte_ numbers (automatically, I hope!) in "standard" editions.

Finally, "blah blah blah" citations in etexts overlook the fact that
the writer may want to refer to a line of thought, a suggestion, or
something other than a literal character string -- how do you cite
reliably with paraphrases and serve the needs of other reader/
researchers?
*------
From: "Peter Graham, Rutgers U., (908) 932-2741" <GRAHAM@ZODIAC.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Form Over Content
To Ken Laws, who said:
>Text is easier
to read if the line breaks are at phrase boundaries.<

This is sometimes called poetry.  You may also be interested in the way Winston
Churchill apparently prepared his parliamentary speeches, on sheets in
paragraphs made up of phrases just in the way you suggest:
All is over.
  Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken,
    Czechoslovakia recedes into darkness.

She has suffered in every respect
  by her association with the Western democracies.

(1939; W Manchester, The LAst Lion: WSC: Alone, 1988, p. 370.)

--Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries
*-----
From: jahb@Lehigh.EDU (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
Subject: Re: Form Over Content
Why I favor content over form:

I just spent a great deal more time than my boss would approve of, getting
hold of a copy of "The Sons of Martha" by Kipling in etext.  (I know, I know,
guys, strictly against copyright law. But I was curious.)
I used gopher, searched FTP sites for kipling, and grabbed martha.tex.Z.
First, I had to figure out that .Z stood for Compressed file (not PKZIPped
file-- long detour with pkunzip and pkzipfix (2 crashes)). Then a wild guess
and a notation in THE WHOLE INTERNET led me to hope compress was on our site
computer (yes!), and i uncompressed it.  I imported it to a text editor only
to find out that tex wasn't TEXT, it was TeX! Which I don't have. And my word
processor won't give me global hanging indents! So I have a messy text with
markups I can't use. Grr.

I think I prefer plain vanilla ascii or a good self-uncompressing printer file.
At least until we can have either self-formatting text (software-independent),
or a real standard (i.e. free) standard for formatting...

Jennifer Heise                           Net: jahb@lehigh.edu
Reference Dept.,                         Phone: (215) 758-3072
Fairchild-Martindale Libraries #8A,  Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015
My opinions are my own. No one else would HAVE them anyway.

"The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth-point goes;
The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad."  Kipling
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU