"Code Sandwiches"

[lurker]

Walter Bright Wrote:

> On 3/9/2011 10:18 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > They're text. With minor formatting. That alone makes html better. Html is
> > lousy for a lot of things, but formatted text is the one thing it's always
> > been perfectly good at. And frankly I think I'd *rather* go with pretty much
> > any word processing format if the only other option was pdf.
> 
> I used to use HTML for presentations. Frankly, it was terrible. The text was 
> rendered badly, especially when blown up on a screen. I could never get it to 
> look right. I couldn't email the presentation to anyone without sending a wad of 
> other files along with it.
> 
> I switched to pdf presentations, and they worked great and looked great. The pdf 
> viewers would render text that looked great blown up. The pdf was all in one 
> file, meaning I could email it to someone and they could look at it directly 
> from their mail program. I would bring backups on a thumb drive so in case my 
> laptop was busted/stolen by the TSA, I could run my presentation on anyone's 
> computer.
> 
> I do not understand why HTML engines do such an ugly job rendering text, while 
> PDF's on the same machine do a great job. This is true on Windows as well as Ubuntu.

This can't be true! Walter defending inferior semi-standard formats. PDF doesn't even have as nice transition effects as powerpoint or new jQuery using presentations stored in the cloud services. Your thumb drives break anyway once a year so I'm in favor of a subscription model for the cloud. Stardard HTML + CSS + JavaScript or Flash works for everyone. There's also Silverlight coming soon.