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Re: [PLUG] Re: VIM and ASCII
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Quoting Matthew Ozor <mtozor@yahoo.com>:
> Don't be "grumpy" and sorry if I ruined your whole
> PLUG list experience. Please don't leave the group on
> the account of my simple question.
You seem to be leaping to many conclusions. Thank you
for your concern, but I am in no danger of leaving
PLUG.
> Do a search for EXTENDED ASCII on google and I say the
> first 748,000 results knew what I was talking about.
This is another leap. If you were to look more carefully
at these links, you will find that most will be a bit
more specific.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=extended+ascii&btnG=Search
(Note that even the google search URL specifies the
character encoding to be used: UTF-8.)
----
Link #3: http://www.asciitable.com
"...it took a while to get a single standard for these
extra characters and hence there are few varying 'extended'
sets."
----
Link #4: http://www.jimprice.com/jim-asc.htm
Strictly speaking, the ASCII character set only includes
values up to 127 decimal (7F hex). However, when the IBM
PC was developed, the video card contained one byte for
each character in the 80x25 character display. Gee...what
to do with that extra bit per character? Why not invent
128 new characters, for line-drawing and special symbols?
The result, of course, was the extended ASCII character
set for the IBM PC. The chart below shows (most of) the
characters that can be generated by the display in the
original IBM PC...Microsoft Windows ® has a different
notion about what the high-order (upper 128) characters
are..."
----
Link #10: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Extended%20ASCII
The term extended ASCII describes 8-bit or larger
character encodings that include the standard 7-bit
ASCII characters as well as others. Because the number
of written symbols used in common natural languages
far exceeds the limited range of the ASCII code, many
extensions to it have been used to facilitate handling
of those languages. Foreign markets for computers and
communication equipment were historically open long
before standards bodies had time to deliberate upon
the best way to accommodate them, so there are many
incompatible proprietary extensions to ASCII.
----
If you are talking to someone who only knows about one
extension to ASCII, the phrase "extended ASCII" will be
understood by both of you...as long as both of you
happen to know only the same extension. Link #10 is a
good one - I recommend that you read it. It describes
many different "Extended ASCII" character sets. In fact
it states: "unannounced use of ISO 8859-1 is quite
commonplace, and should generally be assumed without
evidence to the contrary."
In fact, the "748,000" authorities that you cite
will reveal a great diversity of opinion. Google hit
#8, for example, makes no assumptions about which
particular extension is being used, and just talks about
removing non-ASCII characters. You claim that just
because over 748,000 pages contain both words they
must support you, which seems to be something of a
fallacy.
> If you would please write to the list the correct
> format for asking a question I would be greatful. If
> you are unclear on someones question ask them to
> elaborate don't tell them were the
> "!@#$%^&*(),./;'[]\<>?:"{}|" characters are on the
> keyboard.
You have a good start on the suggestions at
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
You are asking questions - that is to say, favors - of
people with lots of specialized knowledge. As the one
asking the favor, I would advise politeness. Your
initial question was just fine. However, instead of
carefully reading the responses to your question and
seeing what assumptions they were making about your
post, and what clarifying information they were
providing, you responded "You guys read into things too
much and by doing so you miss the simple question...
If you don't know the ansewer don't complicated the
problem with pointless facts."
It ISN'T a simple question, though you may have thought
that it was. Posters offered, with varying degrees of
tact, information and links to more information that
would clarify the issue. You should have responded
with something like, "Okay, thanks for clarifying the
issues. I'm not trying to enter characters
with accents. I'm trying to enter line-drawing
characters like the ones in table ASCII-II at
http://www.cdrummond.qc.ca/cegep/informat/Professeurs/Alain/files/ascii.htm
I'm using vim in the Linux console."
And you likely would have received helpful advice. I
know that I would try to answer such a question. The
seemingly-irrelevant "tangents" about terminology
should be used to learn how to use the terminology
correctly in the future.
> That is insolting to ones intelligence and
> not helpful to anyone in the PLUG list.
The point that was being made by Jeff W.
is that the term "ASCII" can be (and in his opinion,
should be) interpreted extremely rigidly, and any
attempt to refer to something as "extended ASCII"
is misleading and incorrect. I considered making
this point myself, but instead chose to liberally
interpret the term, and post a few suggestions as
to different ways it might be understood. You may
notice that the posts were, in fact, relevant to
the question you really asked, not the one that you
thought that you were asking.
I recommend developing a thicker skin. The sarcasm
of the post is, in fact, there for a reason. For
starters, it tells you something about what happens when
you use the unqualified term "extended ASCII" on a
list full of Linux geeks.
> I am on quite a few mailing list and know the kinds of
> quesions that are recived to the groups. "How do I
> write a program", "How do I write a virus", "What is a
> computer" the normal newbie questions. Most can be
> ansewered with a little reading or reasearch on there
> own part. I for one try my best to find ansewers to
> questions - Google, help, man, info, books, ect.. and
> If I can't find anything I will turn to a list. Most
> of the time someone will have had that same question
> as you or know the ansewer and post it for you.
That is great. It is the correct starting point.
> Beign
> sarcastic does not help anyone.
I would take a look at the above-mentioned "How To Ask
Questions the Smart Way", which reveals helpful
information such as:
"Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is
not intended to give offence. Rather, it's the product
of the direct, cut-through-the-bullshit communications
style that is natural to people who are more concerned
about solving problems than making others feel warm and
fuzzy."
> Your going to tell me that ì is not an extended ascii
> symbol - it was the symbol I orginal asked about in my
> first post on this topic.
That symbol will be viewed _at least_ three diffferent
ways by PLUG readers. I assume that you see some DOS
line-drawing symbol in your mail program. Jeff
Abrahamson and I see an 'i' with a grave accent. Jeff
Weisberg will see question marks in circles. Sure,
it can be called "extended ASCII", but that is
MEANINGLESS without knowing what encoding is being
used.
Many people seem to interpret precision as elitism,
judging by recent complaints that have been posted to
the list. Precision and accuracy are important - this
is an example of a question that needs precision of
language to obtain an accurate answer - or even to
make sense to the people who are being asked the
question.
Speaking for myself, I don't judge people by how
much they know about Linux, or because they use the
wrong term for something technical. It's just
knowledge, and anybody can learn it. Because I
believe that anyone can learn it, I choose to spend
time researching answers to questions that people post
on PLUG, and composing (sometimes long) posts in
response. I believe many others on the PLUG list
share this attitude.
I will continue to be "grumpy" when people ask for
help and then follow up by being ungracious and
unwilling to actually read the answers provided,
and further complain that too much information is
given.
pls
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