Re: [ProgSoc] New ITD Computer Laboratory Equipment (fwd)

[alister air <baitoven@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Telford Tendys wrote:

> Can't resist saying but if you were using LaTeX to do the document,
> the source would probably fit on a floppy. Dunno about the spreadsheet
> because I never use them but I'd be so rash as to guess that there
> are more efficient spreadsheets than excell.

Yes.  But I've yet to acquire 1-2-3.
 
> You can't save to a local hard disc during a session?

Why?  If it's on a lab PC (assuming they'll have hard drives with space
for students to save files) I don't want it there unless I have to have it
there... I'd hate to forget about it and have the next student on the
machine see my assignment in all its glory etc etc etc

> You actually come to uni seven days a week and work on your assignment
> at home every single night of the week? If you are that dedicated,
> why not just stay at uni all the time?

Not seven days a week - seven sessions in a week.  Some might be on the
same day... there'd be roughly seven times I'd sit at a computer.

I'm slightly paranoid, so I save every five minutes (what if the PC fell
over part way through my session?).  Ten saves means about 50 minutes
sitting down at the assignment... this is probably fairly accurate for me.

> Hmmm, sometimes it's nice to work on a large project by breaking it
> up into smaller files -- chapters or sections perhaps. LeTeX lets you
> do that, MS-Word does too but sawing your own leg off with a nail file
> is less painful.

This is true, but I will modify the start bit of a file as much as the end
bit.  It's the way I work - I'm always changing bits at the start.

> There is also this concept of putting an entire project into a
> directory and then naming the directory based on the date.
>
> If you really really can't think of filenames you can actually keep
> using the same name but then only the last-written copy will be
> visible.

While this is true as well, it is messier than a proper re-writable media
(such as a Zip disk).  CD-RW isn't reliable enough so that it works in
every CD drive, and the software I've used for CD-R is far from perfect...
it's nowhere near as reliable as a disk.  I'd sure hate to write over the
filename for the last time, and then discover that it wasn't quite copied
properly...
 
Alister

--

              alister air | graduate computing student 
           libertarian socialist | and a few other things

"By all means lets agitate for    |  "Still, politicians are the ideal
handouts, tax cuts, freebies,     |    tripe liars. Lying (in addition
bread and circuses (why not bite  |   to giving orders) is what we pay
the hand that feeds you? the      |  them for, or rather what they pay
flavor is excellent) but without  |    themselves for with our taxes."
illusions."            --(Bob Black, 1982/1985)--


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