Matthew Ozor on 11 Jun 2004 17:31:02 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] Re: VIM and ASCII


Hey Paul man you have to much time on your hands. I
didn't even bother reading all that. Let me guess
summer leave from school?



--- "Paul L. Snyder" <plsnyder@drexel.edu> wrote:
> 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
> 
=== message truncated ===



	
		
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