Re: [MacPerl-Modules] Re: [MacPerl-Porters] Need authoritative Apple refs for EOL == CR

["Paul J. Schinder" <schinder@pobox.com>]

On Tue, Mar 02, 1999 at 06:11:43AM -0400, Arved Sandstrom wrote:
} 
} There will be some serious revision of tests aand scripts and what have
} you in order to make them portable, which by Perl's def'n of \n these
} folks will have to do. I anticipate that they will want some solid
} evidence, like Chris and David located, that the MacOS line-end is indeed
} \015, before they change their mindset.

But that's simply nuts.  These arrogant clowns won't simply believe a
regular MacOS user about end-of-line?  They won't take the few minutes
it takes to verify this?  (You could, for example, ftp an official
Apple SimpleText document in binary mode if they can't find a Mac.)

Maybe it's my training as a scientist, but what end-of-line is used is
an empirical fact that is easily determined by experiment.  There's no
need for documentation here.  I'd be hard pressed to find a document
that says that Unix uses \012, and it'd be a waste of my time, because
it's a matter of seconds to type "od -a /etc/passwd" and look.
(Kernighan and Ritchie may say that, but K & R isn't a description of
Unix, and K & R is wrong about what \n means.)

} 
} There was also some murmuring that the XML spec is flawed in this regard.
} It seemed to me that Larry Wall took a position with respect to this that
} is quite supportive of MacOS, and some Windows guys were helping out, too.
} It was quite indicative of how things are at the moment that Tim Bray, who
} figures prominently in XML spec development, clearly believed that XML
} lineends were being crunched to '\n' on all OS's. So to promote some
} education here I'd also like to have good refs handy.
} 
} I propose not to ever mention Alpha, or BBEdit, or Codewarrior, etc, in
} this thread over on Perl-XML. It muddies the waters, I think. These are
} sophisticated text editors that accept any line-ends. If I mention them,
} it's just ammo for the other side that wants to say, "Well, if those apps
} can handle it, why can't they all?"

That's fine.  That's not the question you're trying to answer.  The
question you're trying to convince them of is the trivial one.
Amazing.  Laziness may be one of the virtues of a programmer, but it
can go too far.

} 
} Hope that clarifies matters. Arved
} 
} 

-- 
Paul Schinder
schinder@pobox.com

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