#robertbrucefindler — Public Fediverse posts

.> Strand a computer scientist at an airport, and the poor soul would probably survive for days with only a network-connected computer and five applications: an e-mail client, a web browser, a general-purpose text editor, a typesetting system, and a slide-presentation application. More specifically, while most any mail client or browser would satisfy the stranded scientist, probably only Emacs or vi would do for editing, LATEX for typesetting, and Microsoft PowerPoint(TM) for preparing slides...

.> The typical business traveler would more likely insist on Microsoft Word TM for both text editing and typesetting. Computer scientists may prefer Emacs and LATEX because text editing has little to do with typesetting, and these different tasks are best handled by different, specialized applications. More importantly, though, tools such as Emacs, vi, and LATEX are programmable. Through the power of programming abstractions, a skilled user of these tools becomes even more efficient and effective...

.> Shockingly, many computer scientists give up the power of abstraction when faced with the task of preparing slides for a talk. PowerPoint is famously easy to learn and use, it produces results that are aesthetically pleasing to most audience members, and it enables users to produce generic slides in minutes. Like most GUI-/WYSIWYG-oriented applications, however, PowerPoint does not lend itself easily to extension and abstraction. PowerPoint provides certain pre-defined parameters—the background, the default font and color, etc.---but no ability to create new abstractions....

.> Strand a computer scientist at an airport, and the poor soul would probably survive for days with only a network-connected computer and five applications: an e-mail client, a web browser, a general-purpose text editor, a typesetting system, and a slide-presentation application. More specifically, while most any mail client or browser would satisfy the stranded scientist, probably only Emacs or vi would do for editing, LATEX for typesetting, and Microsoft PowerPoint(TM) for preparing slides...

.> The typical business traveler would more likely insist on Microsoft Word TM for both text editing and typesetting. Computer scientists may prefer Emacs and LATEX because text editing has little to do with typesetting, and these different tasks are best handled by different, specialized applications. More importantly, though, tools such as Emacs, vi, and LATEX are programmable. Through the power of programming abstractions, a skilled user of these tools becomes even more efficient and effective...

.> Shockingly, many computer scientists give up the power of abstraction when faced with the task of preparing slides for a talk. PowerPoint is famously easy to learn and use, it produces results that are aesthetically pleasing to most audience members, and it enables users to produce generic slides in minutes. Like most GUI-/WYSIWYG-oriented applications, however, PowerPoint does not lend itself easily to extension and abstraction. PowerPoint provides certain pre-defined parameters—the background, the default font and color, etc.---but no ability to create new abstractions....

.> Strand a computer scientist at an airport, and the poor soul would probably survive for days with only a network-connected computer and five applications: an e-mail client, a web browser, a general-purpose text editor, a typesetting system, and a slide-presentation application. More specifically, while most any mail client or browser would satisfy the stranded scientist, probably only Emacs or vi would do for editing, LATEX for typesetting, and Microsoft PowerPoint(TM) for preparing slides...

.> The typical business traveler would more likely insist on Microsoft Word TM for both text editing and typesetting. Computer scientists may prefer Emacs and LATEX because text editing has little to do with typesetting, and these different tasks are best handled by different, specialized applications. More importantly, though, tools such as Emacs, vi, and LATEX are programmable. Through the power of programming abstractions, a skilled user of these tools becomes even more efficient and effective...

.> Shockingly, many computer scientists give up the power of abstraction when faced with the task of preparing slides for a talk. PowerPoint is famously easy to learn and use, it produces results that are aesthetically pleasing to most audience members, and it enables users to produce generic slides in minutes. Like most GUI-/WYSIWYG-oriented applications, however, PowerPoint does not lend itself easily to extension and abstraction. PowerPoint provides certain pre-defined parameters—the background, the default font and color, etc.---but no ability to create new abstractions....

.> Strand a computer scientist at an airport, and the poor soul would probably survive for days with only a network-connected computer and five applications: an e-mail client, a web browser, a general-purpose text editor, a typesetting system, and a slide-presentation application. More specifically, while most any mail client or browser would satisfy the stranded scientist, probably only Emacs or vi would do for editing, LATEX for typesetting, and Microsoft PowerPoint(TM) for preparing slides...

.> The typical business traveler would more likely insist on Microsoft Word TM for both text editing and typesetting. Computer scientists may prefer Emacs and LATEX because text editing has little to do with typesetting, and these different tasks are best handled by different, specialized applications. More importantly, though, tools such as Emacs, vi, and LATEX are programmable. Through the power of programming abstractions, a skilled user of these tools becomes even more efficient and effective...

.> Shockingly, many computer scientists give up the power of abstraction when faced with the task of preparing slides for a talk. PowerPoint is famously easy to learn and use, it produces results that are aesthetically pleasing to most audience members, and it enables users to produce generic slides in minutes. Like most GUI-/WYSIWYG-oriented applications, however, PowerPoint does not lend itself easily to extension and abstraction. PowerPoint provides certain pre-defined parameters—the background, the default font and color, etc.---but no ability to create new abstractions....

.> Strand a computer scientist at an airport, and the poor soul would probably survive for days with only a network-connected computer and five applications: an e-mail client, a web browser, a general-purpose text editor, a typesetting system, and a slide-presentation application. More specifically, while most any mail client or browser would satisfy the stranded scientist, probably only Emacs or vi would do for editing, LATEX for typesetting, and Microsoft PowerPoint(TM) for preparing slides...

.> The typical business traveler would more likely insist on Microsoft Word TM for both text editing and typesetting. Computer scientists may prefer Emacs and LATEX because text editing has little to do with typesetting, and these different tasks are best handled by different, specialized applications. More importantly, though, tools such as Emacs, vi, and LATEX are programmable. Through the power of programming abstractions, a skilled user of these tools becomes even more efficient and effective...

.> Shockingly, many computer scientists give up the power of abstraction when faced with the task of preparing slides for a talk. PowerPoint is famously easy to learn and use, it produces results that are aesthetically pleasing to most audience members, and it enables users to produce generic slides in minutes. Like most GUI-/WYSIWYG-oriented applications, however, PowerPoint does not lend itself easily to extension and abstraction. PowerPoint provides certain pre-defined parameters—the background, the default font and color, etc.---but no ability to create new abstractions....